This Article is From Jan 07, 2016

Sainik Farms Currently Not Entitled To Be Regularised: Delhi Government To High Court

Sainik Farms Currently Not Entitled To Be Regularised: Delhi Government To High Court

Central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia, appearing for MoUD, told the court that the proposal has been received and was under active consideration and said it would take around 6-8 weeks to arrive at a decision.

New Delhi: Posh Sainik Farms in South Delhi is not entitled to be regularised as per the existing policy, the city government on Wednesday told Delhi High Court which refused to allow any repairs or painting of houses in the area.

The Department of Urban Development made the submission in an affidavit before a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva, which rejected pleas to allow residents of the area to carry out any repairs or painting of their houses in the area.

The government said that one of the clauses of the regularisation policy stipulated that it "does not relate to unauthorised colonies or habitations inhabited by affluent sections on public and private land".

It has told the court that it had in November 2015 forwarded a proposal to the Union Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) to delete this provision and the Centre was yet to take a decision on it.

"It is submitted that as per the extant policy, the said colony is not entitled to be regularised," the Delhi government said in its affidavit.

Central government standing counsel Anurag Ahluwalia, appearing for MoUD, told the court that the proposal has been received and was under active consideration and said it would take around 6-8 weeks to arrive at a decision.

He also told the court that allowing residents of the area to make repairs or paint their houses would bring everything back to square one.

The bench, thereafter, directed the ministry to take a decision within six weeks and listed the matter for further hearing on March 2.

Under the proposed amendments to its regularisation policy, the Delhi government has done away with the categorisation of affluent colonies and said the affluent residents would be identified by their plot size.

The draft proposal was formulated on directions of the high court to make a policy for regularisation of unauthorised colonies in the national capital, including affluent ones like Sainik Farms.

The court was hearing a PIL filed by an NGO alleging illegal construction in Sainik Farms. The NGO, in its plea, has contended that over 500 fresh illegal constructions of huge structures have come up in the area and thousands of tonnes of building material were being taken there despite the court's 2007 order prohibiting the same.
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