PRASIDHY CHAUHAN Vs. DELHI DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present petitions were filed by jhuggi dwellers in occupation of water Body Ring Road, Naraina and Indira Market, J J Clusters, Ring Road, naraina, New Delhi respectively, praying for a writ, order or direction to restrain the official-respondents from dispossessing the petitioners and demolishing their jhuggies and alternatively for relocating the petitioners at the proposed site only after making provision for basic human amenities.

(2.) COUNSEL for the official-respondents appeared in response to the petitions and submitted that pursuant to a direction issued by a Division Bench of this Court, demolition action had already been undertaken and that arrangements for allotment of alternative sites under a scheme for relocation of the jhuggi dwellers were being made. Pursuant to our direction in this behalf, the respondents filed a status report indicating in detail the amenities and arrangements provided at the relocation sites.

(3.) THE Supreme Court of India in State of Maharahtra Vs. Chandra Bhan reported as (1983) 3 SC 387 followed by the celebrated decision in Olga Tellis vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation reported as (1985) 3 SCC 545 has held that the right to Life, enshrined in Article 21 means more than survival or animal existence and would include the right to live with human dignity. It further held that, that which alone can make it possible to live must be declared to be an integral component of the right to live. In this view of the matter, so as to ensure that the petitioners as well as other jhuggi dwellers displaced by the demolitions may live with dignity, it became imperative for this court to ascertain that the relocation sites to which the jhuggi dwellers were being sent had all basic amenities like drinking water, electricity, roads, toilets, drainage, school, transport and medical facilities necessary to secure the inalienable and absolute right to live with human dignity in a reasonable and decent environment. Accordingly, vide our order dated 17th May, 2007, we appointed a Local Commissioner to visit the relocation site at Swaran Jayanti vihar, Tikari Khurd, Narela, Site-I and verify the existence of the amenities provided to the jhuggi dwellers, as mentioned in the status reports filed on behalf of official-respondents.