Wednesday, 21 December 2022 | PNS | NAINITAL
29 acres of railways land in Haldwani encroached upon by more than 4,000 persons
The Uttarakhand High Court has ordered that one-week notice should be served to persons encroaching on railway land at Vanbhulpura in Haldwani and that the encroachments should be demolished. The division bench of Justices Sharad Sharma and RC Khulbe issued this order on Tuesday. The division bench had earlier completed hearing in the public interest litigation regarding encroachment on railways land on November 1 and reserved its judgement. More than 4,000 persons are reported to be encroaching on about 29 acre land belonging to the railways in this area of Haldwani.
During hearings in the case in the past, the counsel for the encroachers had stated that the railways had not given them an opportunity to be heard. The counsel for the railways had stated that all the encroachers had been served notices under the Railway Property (Unlawful Possession) Act and were given an opportunity to state their position. The State government had clarified that the land in question belonged to the railways and not to the State government.The petitioner had pointed out that despite repeated orders of the court, the land in question had not been freed from encroachments. In the past, the court had directed the encroachers to present their objections. After hearing the objections and listening to the arguments of the parties involved, the division bench had reserved its judgement.
It will be recalled that in the PIL filed by Ravishankar Joshi the High Court had in November 2016 ordered that encroachments should be removed from the railways land within 10 weeks. The court had ordered that the encroachers should be served notices under the Railway Property Act and given an opportunity for hearing. The counsel for the railways had stated that 29 acre land of the railways in Haldwani has been encroached upon with about 4,365 persons encroaching on the said land. On the orders of the High Court, these people had been served notice under the Railway Property Act and their contentions were also heard by the railways. None of the persons occupying the land had valid documentation to support their claim to ownership of the land.
