A division bench of the Gujarat High Court on Friday dismissed an appeal by a public charitable trust, which ran a park in Juhapura, seeking damages and compensation for destruction of their property to the tune of crores by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC). The court also refused to entertain AMC’s appeal against imposition of Rs 25,000 cost to be paid to the trust. The case pertains to Society for Promoting Rationality (SPRAT), which was running the Muskaan Park in Juhapura on a land owned by the AMC. According to SPRAT, the AMC evicted them on short notice during the Covid-19 pandemic. SPRAT also alleged that the AMC had demolished several of its equipment in the park, causing damage worth crores. SPRAT moved the high court in 2021 where a single-judge court had ruled that the court cannot go into the jurisdiction of paying damages, as it would require a detailed inquiry. However, it granted SPRAT the liberty to move the appropriate court to seek damages. The court had also observed that AMC had acted in an “unfair” manner and had imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on AMC, to be paid to SPRAT. SPRAT then challenged this order in the HC, pressing for damages, while the AMC also filed an appeal against the single-judge’s order on imposition of cost. The bench of Chief Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice AJ Shastri upheld the order, adding that the single-judge’s findings “would not call for any interference”.
