'Been Paying House Tax For Years, Have Aadhaar Cards' : Haldwani Residents Tell Supreme Court Challenging Railways' Eviction Orders

The Supreme Court of India is likely to hear tomorrow the batch of petitions challenging against the Uttarakhand High Court order based on which demolitions in Haldwani were carried out. The matter was mentioned before a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justice Abdul Nazeer and Justice PS Narasimha by Advocate Prashant Bhushan.

The petition highlights that the petitioners are poor people who have been lawful residents of Mohalla Nai Basti, Haldwani district for more than 70 years. As per the petitioner, the Uttarakhand High Court ordered the summary eviction of more than 20,000 people residing in more than 4000 houses despite the fact that proceedings regarding the title of the residents were pending before the district magistrate.

It is stated that the names of local residents are entered in the municipal records of house tax register and that they have been paying house tax regularly for years. Further, there are 5 government schools, one hospital and two overhead water tanks in the area. It is further stated that the long settled physical possession of the petitioners and their ancestors, some even prior to the date of Indian independence, has been recognized by the State and its agencies and they have been given gas and water connections and even Aadhaar card numbers accepting their residential addresses. 

The petition also submits that the State of Uttarakhand was estopped from denying petitioners the title as the State had earlier filed a review petition in 2016 against an order passed by the High Court in that year for removal of encroachments in railway lands. State had contended that there was no proper demarcation of railway land and the state revenue land and the railway authorities were marking the houses as illegal encroachments without proper demarcation of revenue land.

Through the petition, the petitioners have highlighted that the "arbitrary and illegal approach" adopted by the railway and state authority's had resulted in "the gross violation of the right to shelter of the petitioners as well as the other residents of the disputed land" and thus violated Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

While stating that the High Court of Uttarakhand had not appreciated the evidence of title and lawful occupation submitted by the petitioners, the petition states – 

"The High Court in complete disregard of settled principles of title and occupation, collectively rejected all documents placed by the petitioners that clearly establish their title. The state in its review application acknowledged the legitimate title of the petitioners as an example of the validity of the title of the residents."

Highlighting that Constitutional Courts and Welfare State is duty-bound to protect weaker sections of the society, the petitioner submits that the powers of public authorities to remove encroachments for various development activities must be interpreted in the light of international obligations of India as a result of adoption of UN declarations and resolutions to which India is a party. 

Case : Bhupendra Arya and others vs Union of India and others