Bareilly demolition halted by HC: ‘Due process first’; civic body told to hear residents

MEERUT: Stressing that "no location tin beryllium demolished without owed process", a part seat of justices Ajit Kumar and Satyavir Singh of Allahabad HC stayed the demolition of 27 houses successful Bareilly's Shahabad country successful Prem Nagar, directing the civic authorities not to instrumentality immoderate coercive enactment "until the competent authorization passes a last order.

"The seat disposed of the writ with wide directions -- "Each petitioner indispensable record an idiosyncratic reply wrong 4 weeks, and the competent authorization (civic body) indispensable determine the substance wrong 2 months by issuing a reasoned, speaking bid aft granting a idiosyncratic hearing. Until past - oregon for 3 months, whichever is earlier - nary demolition whitethorn instrumentality place. The bid was to beryllium communicated to Bareilly officials.

" A transcript of the bid has been accessed by TOI.The lawsuit reached tribunal aft residents received notices connected Oct 9, declaring their homes "illegal" and ordering them to raze their structures wrong 15 days. The petitioners argued Bareilly Municipal Corporation (BMC) collected taxes for years, contradicting its ain assertion connected its legality.Although the HC issued its enactment bid connected Nov 13, BMC officials said the bid took immoderate clip to scope them via authoritative channels.

"We were alert of it, but the ceremonial transcript takes clip and hence nary enactment took place," municipal commissioner Sanjeev Kumar Maurya told TOI connected Saturday. The petitioners received the bid connected Dec 2, and the residents thereafter rushed with their requests to the civic authorization to halt the exercise.In Oct, BMC issued notices to the residents stating that the 27 homes were built illegally connected municipal onshore and warned them that FIRs and betterment of demolition costs whitethorn follow. The enactment came successful the backdrop of Sept 26 unit adjacent Islamia Grounds during protests implicit the 'I Love Muhammad' row, aft which authorities launched crackdowns connected alleged amerciable structures and violations linked to section cleric Tauqeer Raza and his aides.(Inputs from Krishna Chaudhary & Asif Ansari)