HC extends deadline for park encroachers to March 21

Senior counsel for the state government, Rafiq Dada, told the court in his capacity as amicus curie, “The Grievance Committee set up by the high court earlier to oversee the implementation of the rehabilitation programme has in its report submitted that only 426 units have paid for the rehabilitation. One is not aware of what are the reasons why the others are not willing to pay the money.”

To this, senior counsel Janak Dwarkadas, appearing for the BEAG, showed pamphlets circulated in the park area by the local politicians which proclaimed that the slum-dwellers need not have to shift out of the area. “In any case, how can the government allow for the rehabilitation of the slum-dwellers in the periphery of the park when even the 22-km-long boundary wall has not been constructed yet,” he asked. He pointed out that the state government has failed in its duty as a trustee of all natural resources of the state and has allowed the “human problem to be converted to a political problem”.

However, Advocate General Goolam Vahanvati assured the court that while it was true that only 1.2 km of the wall has been built, provisions are being made for the rest of the funds as well as for building watch towers, etc.

He told the court that the state government wants to evict the remaining 8,000 illegal units only after the ongoing slum demolition drive on along the railway tracks is complete.