Coming to the rescue of a 57-year-old woman, the High Court of Karnataka has directed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to pay nearly ₹25 lakh as compensation for causing trauma, damaging immovable properties, and loss from rent, for demolishing her house without following the law back in 2016.
In addition, the BBMP will also have to pay separate compensation after an Executive Engineer of the Public Works Department (PWD) assesses the actual loss caused owing to demolition of the house, the court said.
Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order while allowing a petition filed in 2019 by Kavita Podwal, who has been fighting her legal battle by personally arguing her cases before various courts for the past 10 years.
Hold enquiry
Meanwhile, the court also directed the Principal Secretary, Urban Development Department, to hold an enquiry against then Executive Engineer, Assistant Executive Engineer, Assistant Engineer and Deputy Director of Town Planning of Hoody sub-division of BBMP’s Mahadevapura zone for demolishing the house, situated in Narayana Reddy layout, Doddanekundi.
While the court set a 90-day deadline for completing the enquiry, it has directed the Executive Engineer of PWD to give an assessment report within 45 days to the BBMP Chief Commissioner, who should pay compensation to the petitioner within 30 days of the submission of report.
The court said that the BBMP will have to pay compensation at ₹10,000 per month as expenses towards rent with effect from April 25, 2016, and till the petitioner is restored for human habitation.
Legal battle since 2013
The BBMP officials had purportedly acted on a complaint by one Saghir Ahmed, who had claimed he is the owner of the site, and the petitioner had constructed the house without approval from the proper authority. He had also launched multiple suits against the petitioner since 2013 before the civil court. In one of the suit, the civil court had ordered in his favour but the High Court had stayed that order.
On the other hand, the petitioner has claimed that Mr. Saghir and land sharks were after her property, which she had bought in 2005 from a person, who had purchased the partially built house on the site by securing approval from HAL Sanitary Board during 1995-96. She had alleged that BBMP officials, in collusion with Mr. Saghir, were after her since 2013 based on his complaint and continuously acted against her without following the due process of law on the pretext that the house was constructed without approval from the appropriate authority.
In 2017, a Division Bench had issued guidelines to the BBMP for initiating action against any unauthorised construction while acting on one of the pleas of petitioner.
While finetuning the earlier directions issued by the court, the court directed the Chief Commissioner to issue a detailed circular containing all the directions of the court for acting against illegal constructions.
