New Delhi, February 21 – Upset over Delhi police dilly-dallying in providing force to Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to clear Yamuna banks near Okhla industrial area in south Delhi of illegal structures, the Delhi High Court Wednesday asked the police to specify within a week a date when it would be able to provide force.
Seeking strict compliance of its order, a bench of Chief Justice M.K. Sharma and Justice Rekha Sharma said that in case the police failed to follow it, the police commissioner will have to appear before it to explain the matter. The bench was adjudicating a public interest petition for cleaning the Yamuna.
When DDA counsel Rajiv Bansal told the court that the police did not provide the force for demolishing Batla House Extension and Bela Road Extension recently, the bench said, ‘The police cannot do investigation. It cannot provide force for demolition drive. It is high time, we do something.’
Counsel for Delhi police, however, submitted that the police force was not provided as the police had intelligence input that demolition of the houses in the area might lead to unrest in the capital.
‘We know there is somebody, who is pulling you from behind not to go ahead with the demolition despite a clear court order,’ the court observed.
The court said the demolition would have to be carried out within three weeks.
It also directed the DDA to remove all illegal constructions within 300 metres from the edge of the river water at Khallilullah Enclave, Yogabai Enclave and Batla House Extension.
While fixing March 21 as the next date of hearing, the court directed the Central government to make its stand clear on the Tibetan refugee resettlement colony at Majnu-Ka-Tila in north Delhi.
In an order on Dec 17, 2006, it had directed the government to allocate a better site for the office of the Tibetan Government-in-exile and the refugee families settled within the prohibitive limits of the river near Majnu-ka-tila.
The government had in 1962 allowed 200 families from Tibet to settle down what is today known as Majnu-Ka-Tila. Subsequently, the Tibetans built the office and a monastery as more families settled there.
In the process, they have occupied a huge tract of land on the Yamuna bank near the Kashmiri Gate Inter-State Bus Terminal.
