new delhi: After first refusing to entertain the petition, the Delhi High Court's single-judge bench of Justice Pratibha Singh on Monday issued notices to the Delhi government, the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board and the Centre among others on a plea seeking relocation and rehabilitation of slum dwellers, whose homes are being destroyed for the Sarojini Nagar redevelopment project.
Accordingly, the bench directed the Delhi government's Land Development Office to treat the plea as a representation and inform the petitioner of its plans to rehabilitate affected slum dwellers, if it had any at all. While the high court had ultimately issued notices in the matter, it had declined to stay the ongoing work of the planned redevelopment project.
The Delhi government had told the court that the project was being carried out on land illegally encroached by slum dwellers and that even government housing is being demolished for the project — opposing the plea seeking directions to stop the redevelopment work.
To this, the petitioner organisation, Sarojini Nagar Jhuggi Jhopri Vikas Samiti, responded through its advocate, that the developers were bound by a Memorandum of Understanding from 2016 to relocate the affected slum dwellers in the area.
They argued that the MoU in 2016, under which the entire redevelopment project was being carried out itself had a clause stipulating the rehabilitation of these residents. As per the clause, the Land and Development Office of the Delhi government was responsible for planning the relocation of jhuggi dwellers in the area, if any.
"Clause 2.6 of the MOU entered into between the Ministry of Urban Development, GOI and NBCC India Ltd. states that the L & D Office shall work out detailed rehabilitation and relocation plan, which may affect the progress work in advance," Advocate Kamlesh Mishra argued for the petitioners, according to legal news website LiveLaw.
The petitioner also informed the court that the redevelopment work had left the area buried in debris from demolished buildings and jhuggis with no plans for relocating those already affected and soon to be affected.