SUMAN DEVI Vs. UNION TERRITORY ADMINISTRATION CHANDIGARH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have three petitioners. The question is common. Do the petitioners have a right to stay on the land which they have unauthorisedly occupied and should the respondent-authorities be restrained from demolishing the jhuggis/structures that the petitioners have raised? Learned counsel for the petitioners have referred to the facts in CWP No. 15270 of 1999. These may be briefly noticed.

(2.) The 90 petitioners claim to be residing in Labour Colony No. 5, Village Burail, in the Union Territory of Chandigarh. They claim to be doing labour jobs. It is further alleged that they have got identity cards as well as ration cards. They have been residing in the jhuggis for the last more than 10 years. The Chandigarh Administration has allotted the numbers to the Jhuggis by creating different blocks viz. A, B, C and D etc.

(3.) On 29/10/1999, the Enforcement Wing of the Administration reached the site with the purpose of demolishing the jhuggis. The petitioners claimed that they were not residing unauthorisedly. In fact, they were licensees as they had been rehabilitated by the Administration. It is the case of the petitioners that the"encroachers can be removed by the Government by .... giving them alternative sites but in the present case neither any opportunity for shifting from the place nor any alternative site was given by the Chandigarh Administration". Relying upon the decision of a Division Bench of this Court in CWP No. 11637 of 1996 (Azad Bharat Colony and another v. State of Haryana and others) decided on 19/04/1999, the petitioners pray that an appropriate writ, order or direction be issued"restraining the respondents from demolishing jhuggis.........till alternative sites" are provided.