Dismissing a plea by the Residents’ Welfare Association of an unauthorised colony in northwest Delhi against acquisition of land of its occupation, the Delhi High Court in a judgment said that such colonies are “normally born out of greed with intent to secure unmerited benefits” and could not claim protection against demolition. “While jhuggi jhopri clusters are normally born out of need for housing of the poor and underprivileged, unauthorised colonies are normally born out of greed with intent to secure unmerited benefits. Legalising unauthorised colonies in the past has not only emboldened the purchasers of acquired land and rank encroachers but has created manifold problems of environmental degradation, traffic bottlenecks, etc,” observed the bench of Justice Manmohan. The bench also observed that such colonies made it “extremely difficult, if not impossible” to create proper civic facilities since they occupied land in a “haphazard manner”. The observations were made while dismissing the plea filed by the RWA of Utsav Vihar colony. The colony, constructed on what was once private farmland, comes in the way of the ongoing project for the Urban Expansion Road-II, which aims to create new bypass roads to decongest Delhi under the Master Plan 2021. The acquisition of land for the road was done by the DDA in 2004-05 and the DDA demolished part of the colony in 2007 as part of the project. The RWA had approached the High Court in 2007 claiming that it had been included in the list of unauthorised colonies of Delhi which were under consideration to be regularised. The Delhi government, however, rejected the application of the Colony for regularisation in May 2014. The RWA counsel, advocate AK De, told The Indian Express that the judiciary and government were “elite centric” and “ignored the need for housing” for the “poorer sections” of society. “The government has been making a political game of regularisation. The revenue records have the names of the farmland owners who sold the land to the colony builders. Citizens purchased the land in 1992. How can it be illegal now?” asked De.
