Haldwani railway land: SC asks govt to come out with rehabilitation scheme before removing encroachments

New Delhi [India], July 24 (ANI): The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Centre and state government to come out with a rehabilitation scheme for people asked to vacate railway land in Uttarakhand’s Haldwani area.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Dipankar Datta, and Ujjal Bhuyan directed railway authorities and governments to identify the land required for the expansion of railway tracks and the families likely to be affected. It further asked authorities to complete the exercise within four weeks and scheduled the next hearing for September 11.

“As the first initiative, let the land which is required immediately be identified with full description. Similarly, the families who are likely to be affected in the event of taking possession of that land should also be immediately identified,” said the bench.

The top court was hearing an application from the railways to vacate a stay on the eviction of encroachments from railway land to safeguard the railway tracks and the Haldwani railway station.

During the hearing, Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati requested the bench vacate the stay, saying that several expansion plans of the railways have been thwarted due to the unavailability of the land.

The ASG said that Haldwani is the gateway to the hills and the last station before the Kumaon region.

The bench noted that approximately 30.04 hectares of land owned by the railways are claimed to have been encroached upon, with 4,365 houses and over 50,000 people living on the site.

The railways said that there was an urgent need for a part of the land where the defunct railway line is required to be shifted, besides other necessary infrastructure.

As the ASG was requesting to vacate the stay, Bench also observed, “Assuming they are encroachers, the ultimate question is whether they are all human beings. They have lived there for decades. These are all pucca houses. Courts can’t be ruthless, but at the same time, courts cannot encourage people to encroach. As the state, when everything has been happening before your eyes, you also have to do something. The fact remains that people have been living there for 3-5 decades, perhaps even before independence. What have you been doing all these years?”

In 2023, the residents had approached the apex court against the Uttarakhand High Court’s order to remove unauthorised occupants near the Haldwani railway station.

On December 20, the Uttarakhand High Court ordered the removal of encroachments from railway land in the Banbhoolpura area of Haldwani after giving notice to the occupants one week in advance.

A total of 4,365 encroachments were to be removed from the area. Those facing eviction have been living on the land for many decades. Residents protested against the removal of encroachments from railway land in compliance with the High Court order.

The petition highlighted that the petitioners are poor people who have been lawful residents of Mohalla Nai Basti, Haldwani district, for more than 70 years.

The petition stated that the names of local residents are entered in the municipal records of the house tax register and that they have been paying house tax regularly for years.

There are five government schools, one hospital, and two overhead water tanks in the area, it said. The plea further stated that “the long-established physical possession of the petitioners and their ancestors, some even prior to the date of Indian independence, has been recognised by the state and its agencies, and they have been given gas and water connections and even Aadhaar card numbers accepting their residential addresses.”