Sainik Farms demolition favoured

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 6.

Reiterating its earlier stand that Sainik Farms is an unauthorised colony of an affluent section of society on a piece of agricultural land, the Union Urban Development Ministry today submitted before the Delhi High Court that it is strongly in favour of demolition of all illegal structures there.

``The Ministry has no proposal to regularise Sainik Farms where constructions have come up in violation of civic and revenue laws, zoning regulations, building by-laws and planning norms,'' Ms. Geeta Luthra, counsel for the Government, submitted before a Division Bench of the Court comprising Mr. Justice Anil Dev Singh and Mr. Justice Madan Lokur.

Soon after the submission by the Ministry, counsel for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), Mr. Raman Duggal, urged the court to issue appropriate direction for follow-up action on the colony.

The posh South Delhi colony, spread over 300 acres, has palatial buildings of a who's who of the Capital, including politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and retired judges.

A majority of houses are built over a plot measuring 1000 square yards. Plots of this size were parcelled keeping in view of the norm that user-charges for water and power are collected at rates fixed for agricultural land.

When the Ministry announced the policy on regularisation of the Capital's 10,71 unauthorised colonies, it excluded this colony from the list of colonies to regularised, saying that it had come up in gross violation of land use regulation and building by- laws.

Thereafter, residents of the colony, wielding political clout or close to the corridors of power, started lobbying with the State Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to bend them over backwards.

But their beseeching and manoeuvre failed to realise any relief. The Corporation last month filed an affidavit in the High Court saying that it had prepared modalities for the razing down of unauthorised houses of Sainik Farms.

The Corporation had appointed a committee to go into illegal constructions there. The committee in its report recommended that the colony should be thoroughly surveyed and illegal constructions demolished fast.

The Ministry's affidavit said that the Government had appointed a commission to identify individuals or public servants who aided and abetted in the raising of the colony as well as other colonies built on agriculture land or in green belt areas.

The Ministry filed the affidavit on a court direction on a petition by a resident of the colony seeking relief against discrimination in demolition of houses in the colony.

A separate Bench, meanwhile, issued notices to the Union Government, the Delhi Government and the Corporation on a petition by Prayas, a non-governmental organisation, seeking regularisation of the colony.

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