Punjab and Haryana High Court stays demolition of Janata Colony in Sector 25, Chandigarh

Chandigarh, May 13

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today stayed the demolition of Janata Colony, Sector 25. The order will remain in operation at least till June 1 — the next date of hearing in the matter. The order was directed to be conveyed telephonically to the Adviser to the UT Administrator, the Secretary concerned and the Deputy Commissioner.

The competent authority not less in rank than the Secretary, Housing and Urban Development, was also directed to file his “own” affidavit in reply to each paragraph of the writ petition filed in the matter before the court. He was further directed to state as to whether the petitioners were covered by the eligibility conditions set down under the provisions of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, 2015. In case they were not, the Secretary was asked to give detailed reasons.

The direction by the Bench of Justice Amol Rattan Singh and Justice Lalit Batra came on a petition filed by Davinder and other petitioners against the UT and other respondents. At the onset, counsel for the petitioners pointed at the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and clauses 4 and 4.1 on “in-situ” slum rehabilitation using land as a resource with private participation for providing houses to eligible slum dwellers. Responding to the court query whether the petitioners’ case was considered under the scheme, the UT counsel submitted that their eligibility was considered under the Small Flats Scheme, 2006, but they were found ineligible.

He also referred to an order passed by a co-ordinate Bench on a public interest litigation. “Upon a query to him as to whether the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana of 2015 is also a subject matter of that petition, he fairly submits that it is not. If that is so, we do not see how citing a scheme of the year 2006 and a petition in which the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana of 2015 is not even an issue, can even vaguely determine the case of the petitioners,” the Bench added.

Before parting with the case, the Bench added that the colony in which the petitioners were residing would not be demolished till the next date of hearing “in view of what was contained in clause 4 of the scheme. Then petitioners had, among other things, sought the quashing of the impugned notice issued in the matter on May 3 on the grounds of being illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable and, therefore, in violation of Article 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.