Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Nov 9: As the Action Taken Reports (ATRs) have been filed by the Divisional Commissioners of Kashmir and Jammu with regard to maintaining and preserving the Parks and Gardens, High Court has sought response to these ATRs from the amicus curiae on next date.
High Court had directed for taking effective steps for removal of encroachments and unauthorized constructions from all the parks and green spaces and submitting reports with regard to the progress of the work of Divisional Level Committees (DLC) of Jammu and Srinagar for preparing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for mapping of parks and gardens in both cities.
In compliance of these directions, the Divisional Commissioner of both divisions of J&K UT submitted their status report reports.
Senior Additional Advocate General on behalf of Government has provided the copies of the Status Reports to the Amicus Curiae in the open court.
The Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Sanjay Dhar asked the Senior Counsel Faisal Qadri (amicus to the PIL) to file his response to the Status Reports by the next date of hearing if he feels so.
The Divisional Commissioners of Kashmir and Jammu in their status reports have submitted that in alignment with the mandate of 74 constitutional Amendment Act issued by the Government wherein parks measuring less than 10 kanals of land (240 parks) stretched over an area of 756 Kanals of land along with the permanent officers/officials were transferred to the respective Urban Local Bodies.
The DB has been informed that the boundary walls of all parks are seen through with whip link, chains or reeling fences and almost all the parks and gardens of department of floriculture, Kashmir and Jammu are fenced by heritage stone brick walls.
Court in terms of the previous directions has been informed that no constructional work is going on or completed in the parks which are under administrative control of the floriculture except the need based annual repairs for the convenience of general public and tourists.
Court has been further informed that there is no encroachment in any of the parks and gardens maintained by the department as reported by the Floriculture Officer Jammu.
“There is no plastic waste thrown scattered in the parks, the dust bins have been provided in the majority of the parks and needful shall be done to augment the same”, Divisional Commissioner Jammu adds.
He further in his report informed that toilet facilities are available for the parks in Housing Colony, Channi Himmat, which are being maintained by the Housing Board in coordination with civil society and parks in other housing colonies are being maintained by JMC.
“Effective steps are being taken by the Municipal councils and municipal committees to ensure that no construction in violation of norms in any park within the limits of municipal councils and Committees is being carried out”, reads the report.
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