Mehrauli demolition: Colony not a slum cluster, DDA tells Delhi HC

On Tuesday a single judge bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora who was hearing a plea moved by Gosiya Colony Sewa Samiti, representing residents of 400 jhuggis of Gosiya slum colony, asked the petitioner to file its response to replies filed by the DUSIB and DDA and listed the matter for hearing on March 14. The court asked the petitioner’s advocate Anupradha Singh to supply copies of the identification documents of the 467 residents to the counsel of the two authorities before Wednesday allowing her to email those to them. The HC on February 10 had ordered status quo on the demolition action in Mehrauli.

The DUSIB, in its affidavit, has said that in the early 90s, the food and supply department of the Delhi government had identified 929 JJ bastis, and over a period of time a number of JJ bastis were removed under different rehabilitation policies by the DDA and the then slum & JJ department, which is now DUSIB. “That out of these 929 JJ bastis the remaining 675 JJ bastis have been listed by the DUSIB and put them on its website,” the affidavit stated.

The DUSIB had stated that since these 675 JJ bastis were part of the 929 identified ones, they were listed prior to January 1, 2006. As per the Delhi Slum and JJ Rehabilitation and Relocation policy 2015 of the Delhi government, JJ dwellers of these bastis are eligible for rehabilitation, however, the eligibility of individual jhuggi jhopri dweller has to be decided by the eligibility determination committee after the verification that the JJ dweller fulfilled the requisite conditions of the policy, it stated.

The affidavit states that beyond the 675 JJ clusters, DUSIB is not providing any kind of service to any JJ cluster. On the issue of rehabilitation of an additional list of 82 JJ clusters at the specific request of land owning agency and further subject to the ascertainment of the existence as on January 1, 2006, the DUSIB may rehabilitate if the individual inhabitant qualifies all other conditions.

The additional list of 82 JJ clusters has been collated and published on the website of DUSIB wherein the JJ clusters have been included which are alleged to be existing prior to January 1, 2006, but the process of verification of the claim of existence prior to January 1, 2006, has not been carried out, the affidavit said. It stated that whether these dwellers can claim rehabilitation can be confirmed only after verification.

“That the name of JJ Basti Gosia Colony does not exist in the list of 675 identified JJ bastis. However, the name of JJ Basti Goshia Colony was mentioned in the list of 82 additional JJ bastis with cluster code 769, which was earlier uploaded on the website of DUSIB. As per said list of 82 J bastis, there were 400 jhuggis and DDA is the land owning agency,” the affidavit stated.

The DUSIB asked its engineering and sociology Division how Gosia Colony was included in the list. The affidavit states that the engineering wing reported that the list was prepared on the basis of feedback from the concerned area MLAs and engineering divisions in 2017 hence it is not clear whether the JJ basti existed prior to January 1, 2006, which is the cutoff date for rehabilitation/relocation of JJ bastis as per the policy dated December 11, 2017.

The list of 82 JJ bastis was preliminary compiled from new bastis, “which have not been verified as per the policy”, hence the list has been “withdrawn and since removed from DUSIB’s website and the authority is not providing any kind of facilities to the inhabitants of the said list of 82 bastis”, the affidavit stated. The DUSIB has further said that since the “land owning agency is the DDA therefore it has no role in the demolition or rehabilitation of the petitioner”.