Hearing on a public interest litigation regarding encroachment in Dehradun, the High Court of Uttarakhand in Nainital has served notice to the State Government, cantonment board, municipal corporation of Dehradun and the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA). The respondents have been directed to submit their reply within four weeks by the division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice Alok Kumar Verma.
According to the case details, Dehradun resident, Akash Yadav, had filed a public interest litigation in the High Court. The petitioner has stated that the authorities concerned are not removing encroachments made by people on Government land, roads and drains.
The places from where the encroachments were removed earlier have been taken up again by encroachments. The petition has also stated that he had reported on many occasions about the encroachments to the municipal corporation and MDDA. However, neither was cognisnace of the reports taken nor were the reported encroachments removed.
It is pertinent to mention here that on the directions of the high court, the state administration had first initiated an extensive anti-encroachment drive in Dehradun during 2018.
However, the drive was halted and the development and beautification works planned were not executed. The drive was resumed this year but fizzled out after a few days.