Some people will have to go out, Supreme Court remarks in Haldwani case

On January 5, the top court had stayed an Uttarakhand High Court order of December to evict ‘unauthorised occupants’ from railway land within a week

A train passes near the encroached land near Haldwani Railway Station in Uttarakhand on January 29, 2023. | Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said there may be “gross encroachers” on railway land at Haldwani in Nainital and “some people will have to go out”.

“Problem here is there may be people who may be gross encroachers, some people with a semblance of titles, people living on the railway line… I have seen the pictures. Some people will have to go out,” a Bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul addressed the counsel for petitioners, advocates Prashant Bhushan and Vipin Nair.

The court was hearing petitions challenging an order passed by the Uttarakhand High Court to evict poor families whose tenements spread over 29 acres of land said to belong to the Indian Railways at Haldwani.

The government has sought eight weeks’ time to chalk out a “workable solution” to the problem.

Mr. Bhushan, who appears for the affected petitioner-residents of Banbhulpura and Mohalla Nai Basti, said he has filed an affidavit giving details of the land titles owned by his clients.

“If somebody has a title, it depends on what the scheme prevalent is… Somehow it needs to be determined in what way the issue can be reasonably worked out,” Justice Kaul observed orally.

Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, also for petitioner families, submitted that the issue was an “artificially created human problem”.

“It can be resolved instantly if we all sit together,” Mr. Gonsalves said.

“You are a senior lawyer, you invite them for a discussion,” Justice Kaul addressed him, listing the case again on May 2.

On January 5, the apex court stayed an Uttarakhand High Court order of December to evict “unauthorized occupants” from the railway land within a week. The High Court had directed the railway authorities and the district administration to even use paramilitary forces to remove the occupants from the land.

Thousands of residents of Banbhulpura had protested the removal of the encroachments, saying it would render them homeless and jeopardize the future of their school-going children. The move would affect a large number of women, children and the elderly.

“Ours is a welfare state where government authorities need to work towards the well-being and prosperity of the citizens. In the present case, they have proceeded without following due process to issue ex-parte orders against the petitioners and produce arbitrary demarcation reports… Such an approach shows an absolute disregard to the procedure of law and is in complete violation of basic humanitarian and fundamental rights,” the affected families have contended in their petition in the Supreme Court.