Following the eviction of 90-year-old Padma Shri awardee and Odissi dancer Guru Mayadhar Raut from his Government accommodation in Delhi's Asian Games village, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on Thursday said there were 27 such allotments under the eminent artists’ category and of them 15 have vacated. It pointed out how the Delhi High Court (HC) not just dismissed the petitions of the artists thrice but also imposed fines on them.
Elaborating further the Ministry said it had issued guidelines dated 24.10.1985 for allotment of Government accommodations under the eminent artists’ category on the basis of a decision taken by Cabinet Committee on Accommodation (CCA) on 12.09.1985, subject to certain conditions including that ‘duration of allotment would be three years and cases of allotment to be reviewed once in a three years’.
“Since then allotments are made to artists and the CCA had allowed retention to them upto 31.07.2014. Thereafter, CCA regularised their unauthorised occupation period from 01.08.2014 to 30.09.2020 and further three months’ retention was granted upto 31.12.2020 for making alternative arrangement,” it said.
“The artists filed a WP(C) No.9346/2021 before the HC, which in its judgement on 25.02.2022 dismissed the application and gave two months grace period to the artists.
“After that the Directorate of Estates started eviction proceedings. The artists again filed a plea before the HC and it was dismissed with a fine of Rs.50,000”, the Ministry said.