SC orders removal of 48000 slum dwellings around Delhi Rly track

Sep 3, 2020

New Delhi: Nearly 48,000 slum dwellings around the 140-kilometer length of railway tracks in New Delhi will be removed within three months, as per an order of the Supreme. Court.

The apex Court has has further directed that no court should grant any stay on the removal of the slums.

“The encroachments which are there in the safety zones should be removed within a period of three months and no interference, political or otherwise, should be there and no Court shall grant any stay with respect to removal of the encroachments in the area in question”, the top court ordered, according to a Livelaw report.

The order was passed by a bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra. The court also said any interim order granted with respect to the encroachments shall not be effective.

The Supreme Court directive after an affidavit was filed by Railways in which they sstated that following the directions passed by the National Green Tribunal, Principal Bench, in October 2018, a Special Task Force for removal of encroachments from the Railway Property has already been constituted, but there was “political intervention” which comes in the way of the removal of encroachments, the Livelaw report said.

Railways said these jhuggies clusters were situated with 140 km route length of track in the region of NCT of Delhi, and out of this, about 70 km route length of track is affected by large jhuggie jhopri clusters existing in close vicinity of the tracks. These clusters sum up to a total of about 48000 nos of Jhuggies in the region adjacent to Railway tracks.
–India News Stream