NAGPUR: The Nagpur bench of
Bombay high court on Thursday refused to accept an apology from the divisional commissioner for committing contempt by not removing encroachments from Bezonbagh Society despite repeated directives since last many years.
The HC asked him to remain present on July 25 to answer charges on aggravated contempt committed by him by not responding to its directives even after filing an affidavit in this regard. The court may frame charges against him at the hearing.
Earlier, the HC rejected a plea filed by the encroachers through counsel Shreerang Bhandarkar.
The court had ordered removal of encroachments long back, but the administration had failed to comply with the directives. Following this, a contempt plea was filed in the case. The divisional commissioner had tendered an apology over failure to remove the encroachments. On Thursday, the court rejected the apology and ordered him to be present at the next hearing.
Divisional commissioner
Anoop Kumar had submitted before the court that so far possession of 54 open plots was handed over to
Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and eviction notices were slapped on encroachers who had built pucca structures on 22 open plots. The administration would initiate action against the encroachers after the notice period ends. But the court wasn’t satisfied with this reply. The court also rejected the pleas of 22 encroachers and asked them to vacate the plots by September.
The contempt plea was filed by Madhukar Patil pointing out the inaction in handing over open plots in Bezonbagh to NMC despite court’s clear orders in a related petition filed by Atmaram Ukey against the
Maharashtra government.
On December 19, 2008, the HC had directed commissioner to hand over available open space to the corporation after removal of encroachments, as expeditiously as possible, and in any case before January 31, 2009. It also directed him to conduct a survey on encroachments and submit a report along with recommendations to additional chief secretary of state revenue and forest department.
A year later, on December 9, 2009, the court even censured the commissioner over his inaction while tersely observing that the time sought by him was “just an excuse to delay implementation of its directives”. On November 28, 2011, Ukey filed an application seeking directives to hand over open plots which are not used as dwelling houses to the NMC commissioner.
On May 6, 2016, the HC again directed the commissioner to hand over possession of plots as mentioned in 2011 order. He instead filed an application for modification of order, which was rejected by the court on June 24 the same year. Aggrieved by Kumar’ delaying tactics, Patil approached the judiciary demanding directives to him to implement court orders.
THE CASE
Empress Mill land was originally allotted to Bezonbagh Sanstha. As per the sanctioned map and plan, the entire layout comprised four big plots admeasuring 80.09 acre. In all the layouts, plots for public utility were reserved. A multi-storied building for economically backward classes was also planned. However, after some time, illegal constructions by influential persons and politicians started cropping up on the public utility land
