An 83-year-old Frenchman who has been running a popular organic farm in Gurgaon district for more than three decades has alleged that an industrial park and warehousing company has erected an illegal cement wall along one side of his three-acre property, entirely blocking its main gate and cutting off all access through it.
Roger Langbour, a retired French Air Force officer who has run French Farms with his wife Anita Sinha Langbour since purchasing the land in 1994, has alleged that the wall came up suddenly on March 8, and is intended to force him to sell the property.
Langbour has alleged sustained harassment from the warehousing company, Horizon Industrial Parks, for the past three years. He has taken up the matter with the local administration, and alleges that police and village officials have not acted effectively on his complaints.
“They (the company) want to take my land, it is totally illegal. They want to force me to sell, but I won’t [sell] at any price [to them],” Langbour told The Indian Express. However, he said that recent events have forced him to consider shutting the farm if he is offered a deserving price for the land.
A representative of Horizon Industrial Parks had initially declined to comment on Langbour’s allegations.
The farm is located in Pathredi, a village that lies about 4 km off the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway (NH 48). The Bilaspur-Tauru road connects the village with the Expressway at Bilaspur Chowk ahead of Manesar.
Pathredi is a village of agriculturalists, but large tracts of land have been bought by warehousing and major e-commerce companies. The new wall has come up between the red-brick perimeter wall of French Farms and the revenue road that passes along its southeastern side. Pedestrians and two-wheelers can still pass between the two walls, but larger supply and transport vehicles cannot.
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According to Langbour and his staff, workers from Horizon Industrial Parks arrived with an excavator, a concrete mixer, and other construction equipment around 8.30 pm on March 8, and proceeded to build the wall. In a statement posted on X, Langbour’s daughter has claimed that police officers were present at the site when the wall was coming up, but they did not intervene.
The family has accused Horizon Industrial Parks of harassing them since 2023, trying to isolate the property and pressure them into selling under duress for warehouse development. The family claims that representatives of the company had approached them earlier to buy the farm, and after they refused, began to employ intimidation, threats, and road blockades against them.
Langbour maintains that the revenue road is shown clearly in his sale deed and khasra plan, and that the farm has faced no objection from any authority for 29 years. In representations made to the Gurgaon deputy commissioner earlier, he had complained that the company had illegally blocked about 170 metres of the revenue road that has been used by the public to approach the Delhi-Jaipur highway for the past several decades.
On July 1 and July 5, 2023, Langbour wrote to the DC and the police, alleging mischief and high-handedness by the company in connivance with lower-level officials.
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On February 7 this year, 30-35 workers allegedly attempted to construct structures on the public road outside the property, and threatened the farm manager when he objected. A complaint was filed at the Bilaspur police station at the time.
According to Langbour, the Manesar sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) had promised to resolve the matter. When contacted, SDM Yadav said there were discrepancies in the demarcations, which would be sorted out in about a week.
“Mr Langbour’s land is of the shape of a trapezoid, not rectangular. The part of the farm’s wall in front of the revenue road is straight, and a part of the wall will now be realigned to correct it to the trapezium-edge shape,” he said. “There was a meeting of all the parties in my office earlier this month and the industrial park agreed to bear the cost of the legal realignment of the farm’s wall.”
A trapezoid is a quadrilateral that has only one pair of parallel sides (known as bases) and two non-parallel sides (called legs). Langbour expressed scepticism with this explanation – all land chunks in the area were trapezoid-shaped, he said, and added that he was doubtful of a speedy resolution.
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Sub-Inspector Rakesh Kumar of the Bilaspur police station said there was no argument on the night the wall was erected, and that Horizon Industrial Parks appeared to have a lawful right to the construction.
“We received a complaint but no case has been made out for an FIR yet. Demarcations were made in the presence of duty magistrates, and government records and satellite images show that the land belongs to the company,” SI Kumar said.
Reached for a comment, Dharmendra Naharwal, Lead Zonal Manager at Horizon Industrial Parks, said that he had assumed his position only recently, and redirected inquiries to Sujoy Das, Assistant General Manager of Corporate Affairs. In response to queries, Das responded: “No comment”.
Langbour said the inability to use his main gate has significantly disrupted both his business operations and daily life. Trucks can no longer enter or exit the premises, severely impacting deliveries and guest visits, he said.
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Langbour has now broken a portion of the farm’s perimeter wall close to where the revenue road starts, to create alternative access to his property. But vehicles still can’t enter, and this has impacted his business, he said.
French Farms typically delivers 600-800 whole chickens daily to customers, along with eggs and vegetables. Langbour’s clients include large hotels and highrise societies across Delhi-NCR, embassies, and ambassadors. “Business has dropped by at least 20%, as trucks have been unable to enter,” he said.
On April 1 (post publication of this story), a spokesperson for Horizon Industrial Parks said, “We have constructed [the] boundary wall within our own land, duly following the process outlined by the relevant government authorities; and we will continue to comply with all local laws.”
