Supreme Court will hear today pleas against Haldwani land eviction order

Residents of Banbhulpura hold a candle march to protest for their demands following the order of Uttarakhand High Court on removing the encroachment near Haldwani railway station, on Monday. (ANI Photo)

On December 20 last year, the High Court bench of Justice R C Khulbe and Justice Sharad Kumar Sharma directed Railways “to use the forces to any extent determining upon need, to evict forthwith the unauthorised occupants after giving them a week’s time to vacate the premises”.

The 176-page HC ruling, commenting on the state’s earlier intervention, noted: “Owing to the certain most reckoned political shield, which was then being provided by the then ruling party for its political gains to the unauthorised occupants, just to secure its vote bank, the State itself has filed a Review Petition, for no subsisting and valid reasons… seeking review of the judgment dated 9th November, 2016, which too was dismissed by the Division Bench vide its judgment dated 10th January, 2017…”

“… while dismissing the Review Petition, the Court considered the Misc. Application No. 243 of 2017, therein, about the glaring revelation which were placed on record pertaining to the inaction on the part of the State machinery for not providing an adequate assistance for removing the unauthorised occupants, despite the orders of the Court to execute the orders by removing the unauthorised occupants.”

Dismissing the claim by residents that the 1907 record established the area as nazul land, the HC said the document is only “an official communication, it will not have a statutory force”.

The High Court essentially looked into a 1907 municipal record that determines the use of the land.

Dismissing the claim by residents that the 1907 record established the area as nazul land, the HC said the document is only “an official communication, it will not have a statutory force”.

“Under the Urdu terminology, nazul land means a land, which is commonly called as ‘jaayajaad munjaapaata’, which means a land, which was left by the principal occupier, as an act of rebellion of Mutiny of 1857, which was later on vested with the Queen. Since no act of Mutiny of 1857 had ever taken place in the Haldwani Khas, so created in 1834, no part of the land of Haldwani Khas, would be said to be ‘jaayajaad munjaapaata’, to be termed as a nazul land,” the ruling stated.

The residents, some of whom have been living there for decades, have been protesting against the court order. (Source: Twitter/@ShayarImran)

With every lease or sale deed, originating on the basis of the 1907 document in question, the HC said that the land stands vested with the Railways since it is adjoining the Haldwani Railway Station. The initial plea in 2013 by petitioner Ravi Shankar Joshi against illegal mining in the region was eventually expanded to encroachment of public land.

Advocate Tanveer Alam Khan, who represented the affected residents of Banbhoolpura, said, “After the 2013 PIL, an Advocate Commissioner was appointed, who said that a few people live on the railway land and are involved in illegal mining. In 2016, the High Court said that these people should be removed from the land. Without any notice or proper hearing, orders were issued to remove these people from the claimed railway land. However, in 2017, the Supreme Court said that these people should be given the right to a hearing. The Supreme Court also directed that the matter should be heard under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act.”

Over 4,000 families have been served eviction notices and given seven days to vacate the area, following an order to that effect issued by the Uttarakhand High Court. (Source: Twitter/@ShayarImran)

Advocate Piyush Garg, who represented one of the intervenors in the Writ Petition No. 30 of 2022, said it all started in 2013 when a PIL was filed by Ravi Shankar Joshi who said there is illegal mining in the area and it has caused a bridge collapse on the Gaula river. Hearing the petition, the court widened the scope of the PIL and said encroachments in the area should be removed.

“Meanwhile, the state government said that the land does not have any demarcation and belonged to it. There was a demand that demarcation be done to confirm how much is railway land. When the matter came back to the High Court, it said the original issue was related to the Gaula river and not about the railway land, and if the petitioner wants, he can file a new petition regarding the encroachments. The court also said that the action against occupants under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act will continue,” Garg said.

In 2022, the petitioner filed a new plea that illegal occupants be evicted under Section 147 of the Railways Act which deals with trespass and refusal to desist from trespass. The court issued a general notice that those who want to say something can do that through intervention applications. A total of 10 intervention applications were filed and, after rejecting them, the court passed a final order on December 20.

Hundreds of people, mostly women, have been turning up after the afternoon namaz to protest in Haldwani, asking for the demolition process, scheduled for January 8, to be stopped. (ANI Photo)

It said that the “railway authorities in coordination with the district administration, and if need be, with any other paramilitary forces, shall immediately, after giving a week’s notice to the occupants over the railways land, ask them to vacate the land within the aforesaid period”.

The order stated that if the occupants/encroachers fail to vacate the premises after being issued notice, the railway authorities, in joint coordination with the local police and district administration, can initiate immediate action and take forceful possession of the occupied land.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Vivek Gupta, Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Izzatnagar, said they have old maps, a 1959 notification, revenue records from 1971, and the results of the 2017 survey to prove their ownership of the land. He said the Railways needs this land to provide more trains for the Kumaon area. But advocate Garg said the Railways does not have documents which demarcate the extent of their land.

Advocate Tanveer Alam Khan said a map of 1883, presented by them, shows that the Railways has only 32.78 acres of land in the area. “This land includes the railway station and the railway lines,” he said.

Several affected residents have claimed that they have documents showing that their houses were purchased by a custodian.

“Those who left the country during the Partition in 1947 left their houses. Those houses were then auctioned by the government. If the houses were on railway land, then how come it was auctioned by the government and sold to us under the Displaced Persons (Compensation and Rehabilitation) Act,” Waris Shah Khan (61), a resident of Banbhoolpura, said.