Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 18: Division Bench of State High Court comprising Justice Virender Singh and Justice Muzaffar Hussain Attar today raised legal issue pertaining to recently enacted controversial J&K Civic Laws (Special Provisions) Act, whereby demolition or sealing of illegally raised structures has been frozen.
The DB also reprimanded the Deputy Commissioner Reasi for ‘deliberately’ delaying the implementation of orders relating to sealing of such structures in Katra town till the enactment of the Act and Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Demarcation for not responding to the show cause notice on contempt of court proceedings.
During the course of hearing on the PIL, Advocate Parag Sharma, appearing for the petitioner, said, “the J&K Civic Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2014 is nothing but a step aimed at circumventing the orders of the Division Bench regarding sealing of illegal structures in Katra town”.
“There was no substantial progress on the implementation of the court orders till March 5, 2014 when the Act was passed and this clearly indicates that there was no seriousness in ensuring compliance of the orders”, he further said, adding “no status report about the implementation of the sealing orders has been filed despite explicit directions in the last order”.
On this, Additional Advocate General, Seema Shekhar submitted that there was delay in filing status report due to holidays. However, Division Bench took serious note of this and asked, “what has holiday to do with the filing of status report”, adding “you were actually waiting for the special law to be passed to circumvent the Court orders”.
The AAG further submitted, “the sealing process was started in compliance to the court directions but the Reasi district administration had to face the law and order problem”. However, the DB found this as just an excuse and in the open court remarked, “law and order is your problem….it was for the Government to see how to overcome this problem in order implement the orders”.
Reprimanding the Deputy Commissioner Reasi, the DB asked, “why there was slackness in implementing the orders passed on December 31, 2013 till the enactment of Act in March 2014”, adding “this clearly indicates the intension behind the passage of special legislation. It seems the administration intentionally delayed the implementation of orders”.
After going through the provisions of the J&K Civic Laws (Special Provisions) Act, the DB said, “Advocate Parag has rightly said that the Act is aimed at circumventing the court orders”, adding “this special piece of legislation has only frozen the court orders regarding sealing of the illegally constructed structures otherwise there is nothing significant in it”.
Whether the court orders can be frozen by the legislators? asked the Division Bench while raising legal issue on enactment of the Act. “This issue has to be deeply looked into”, the DB said and directed the Registry to list the PIL next week for further consideration.
On this, Advocate Parag Sharma drew the attention of the Division Bench towards an exclusive report appearing in EXCELSIOR on March 6 mentioning that Governor had objected to various provisions of the Act. “We have also gone through the news”, the DB said, in the open court and remarked, “the Act has only targeted the sealing/demolition point”.
Earlier, the Division Bench took serious note of failure of the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Demarcation to respond to the show cause notice on contempt of court proceedings.
“In the last order we had directed the DFO to show cause as to why contempt of court proceedings may not be initiated against him for not implementing the orders but he has not responded to the same”, the DB said.
As Advocate G S Thakur stated that DFO has submitted the compliance report in pursuance to the earlier directions and prayed for grant of more time to respond to the show cause notice, the DB remarked, “Compliance report is not a favour to us. He has to explain as to why he has failed to respond to the show cause notice”.
On this, Advocate Thakur explained the procedure required to be followed for demarcation exercise and said that DFO, who was present in person, has apologized for the delay in carrying out this exercise. He also prayed that no adverse orders may be passed against him keeping in view the fact that he was about to superannuate from the Government service.
Taking lenient view, the DB considered the request of Advocate Thakur.
According to the status report, 2 acre, three kanal and 5 marlas of forest land has been encroached along the Domail-Katra road. On the encroached land, pacca structures and sheds have been raised by the encroachers.
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