Decide on Sainik Farms fate in 2 months Delhi HC tells authorities
Noting that the issue of Sainik Farms regularisation is “pending for over a decade”, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday asked the officials of the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Delhi Government, Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) to convene a meeting and address the issues related to Sainik Farm. Sainik Farm is an affluent but legally unauthorised and unregularised colony in South Delhi.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia on Tuesday noted that the petitions related to construction and legality of the colony have been pending before the court for over a decade and, therefore, ordered the Government authorities to conduct the exercise in two months.
The Bench underscored that it is high time that the authorities decide the issue of Sainik Farms.
“You have to take some decision. You cannot keep them in lurch. Something needs to be done. It’s your Government which has been bringing legislation after legislation for regularising. There are so many areas where you permit illegality, allow it to perpetuate and then regularise it. It is high time you should decide [Sainik Farm issue]. They should know their fate,” the Court said.
It added that at this stage, it was not permitting the residents to even repair the properties.
“At least we are not permitting them to even undertake the repair. The construction is illegal, there is no layout there, there is no building plan,” the Bench remarked. The Bench made these observations while dealing with a batch of petitions related to the issue of Sainik Farm.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma appeared for the Central Government and stated that in the past, whenever some humanitarian stand was taken and the residents of Sainik Farm were allowed to carry out some repair works, it brought about “catastrophic results and palaces came up in the area”.
