The Delhi High Court on Thursday asked the Centre to decide on the regularisation of South Delhi’s Sainik Farms colony saying its “fate” had to be decided ultimately. A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhayaya and Tushar Rao Gedela, while dealing with petitions, including one filed in 2015, for the colony’s regularisation, said the matter could not be kept pending and asked the Centre’s counsel to take “complete instructions”.
“You seek instruction from the government of India on what it has done. Why should such a matter be kept pending? The fate of the colony has to be decided. We can’t permit it to go on and on like this. You have to take a decision,” it said. Following its orders in 2022 and 2023, the Court said the Centre filed an affidavit without disclosing any decision on the regularisation and only saying a “policy decision” had to be taken.
“Let complete instructions be sought by him (Centre’s lawyer) in response (to earlier orders).. We have already expressed concern (in earlier orders) that the matter has been pending for a fairly long time and accordingly we expect the Union of India to come forth with a policy decision at the earliest,” it ordered.
The court posted the hearing in March while asking the authorities to come up with a solution. “Constructions are going on. Colonies after colonies have come up..It is because of your inaction, laxity or connivance,” it said.
The bench went on to add, “Why did you allow such construction to come up if the land was agricultural? You are responsible. These are war widows. You have to find some solution.” The counsel for petitioners said the land in question was purchased by their society in 1962 under a scheme to settle war widows.
The petitioners also urged the Court to pass an order allowing them to carry out repairs in their properties. The Bench asked the Centre’s counsel to seek instructions on this aspect.
The Centre’s affidavit filed earlier said it took a conscious decision to not get into the regularisation of illegal colonies that were categorised as affluent colonies, like Sainik Farms, and it was presently focusing on the redevelopment work of the 1,797 unauthorised colonies, sub-divided into two classes.
Constructions raised in the affluent colonies like Sainik Farms are protected by law up to December 2023, it added. In April, 2022, while hearing the plea by Ramesh Dugar, convener of the area development committee in Sainik Farms, for regularisation of the colonies, the high court said it was “high time” that the issue was “resolved once and for all”. The Bench said the authorities had to decide and could not keep the “pot boiling” indefinitely.