400 families face eviction from encroached PSPCL land

Occupants of nearly 400 houses in Dr BR Ambedkar Nagar, who have been living on a huge chunk of 7.79 acres of encroached land of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), are set to be evicted in a few weeks.

Even as the PSPCL had won the case for possession of this prime property along Chugitti about 11 years ago in the local court, it could not take possession owing to lack of police support. The PSPCL had to move a petition for execution of the orders, following which the Rama Mandi SHO was asked to appear today in the court. Since the occupants of the land also appeared in the case, citing that they had some documents to prove their possession, the court decided to put off the matter to November 14.

The land, which had been encroached since 1986, was in a litigation row since 2001. The matter was decided in 2014 after 13-year-long legal battle. However, the PSPCL is yet to get possession of the land, which is worth hundreds of crores of rupees.

Advocate Sundeep Kanwal Singh Chhabra, counsel for the PSPCL, said it is all geared up to take possession of the land. "We have only been awaiting police protection to avoid any untoward incident", he said.

It was on October 17, 1969, that the government had acquired the chunk of the land for the benefit of the Border Security Force (BSF) and had even got the mutation done in the name of the BSF. Out of it, some land was also transferred to Punjab Agriculture University for building the Sugarcane Research Station.

Two years later on February 24, 1971, an agreement was signed in which the BSF and the PAU transferred the entire chunk of their land to the PSPCL. The land was officially transferred to the PSPCL. The PSPCL had plans to build sub-stations and residential quarters for their employees, Chhabra said.

As the PSPCL kept the construction pending for 15 years, people started encroaching over the land. With the passage of time, around 179 constructions, including cemented, double-storey residences and shops were built illegally by people, the counsel said. The PSPCL filed a civil suit to get the land vacated.

Interestingly, local politicians had even got the houses constructed with Centre's grant utilising the PM Awas Yojna. Grants had even been doled out by the MLAs for constructing religious places and laying water and sewerage lines. The occupants had thus shown these documents in the court to prove that they were in the right possession of the property but to no avail.