Another plea in Supreme Court to halt Khori Gaon demolition; third in two months

Even as Faridabad Municipal Corporation is continuing with the top court mandated Khori Gaon demolition in the forest areas of Aravalli, Priwasee Sangthan Welfare Society has moved Supreme Court seeking a stay on demolition of about 70,000 houses..The petition, which also challenged the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran Rehabilitation Policy to the extent it limits the cut off for rehabilitation to 2003, will be heard on July 19 by a Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Sanjiv Khanna..The plea filed on behalf of about 1.5 lakh residents of the encroachment area stated that the existence of a government school and a government park in that area lends credibility to the claim that the government had recognised the area to a large extent for them to have built a school and a park by utilising public funds.."You know what to do:" Supreme Court refuses to halt demolition of settlements housing over 1 lakh people in Khori Gaon, Faridabad.The petition filed through advocate Mohit Paul, said that the right to life guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution of India includes the right to livelihood."If a person is evicted from the place where he is residing unauthorizedly and his house is demolished, then he will certainly lose his livelihood too, for to work he must live somewhere," the petition said..This is the third such petition being filed in the apex court in the last two months. .The top court had on two previous instances refused to halt the demolition of over 10,000 settlements housing over 1 lakh people at Khori Gaon in Faridabad district, Haryana for encroachment on forest land.When the Haryana government had earlier submitted that encroachers were pelting stones on officials, the Supreme Court said that no order was required and that the authorities "knew what to do."On June 7, the top court had directed the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad to use "police force, if needed" to remove all jhuggis and encroachments on Khori Gaon forest land within six weeks.