The law raises more questions than it answers. The problem of illegal constructions and encroachments is not a new one for Delhi. Why, then, does the government now require a year to design strategies to deal with the problem? How can we expect it to do so when it has not designed such strategies all these years? And why does it need a law to do this?

Laws relating to unauthorised constructions or their demolition have always been applied randomly and unequally. In Delhi, these matters are regulated as per the provisions of the Unified Building Bye-laws, 1983. The fact that the local authorities either did not enforce the bye-laws, or overlooked their violations, is obvious from the large-scale court-ordered sealing of illegal properties and their demolition. Jaipal Reddy, the Union urban development minister, even admitted in the Lok Sabha on March 6 that “the extent and magnitude of violations of unauthorised construction and misuse of premises is assessed to be huge and the number of families likely to be affected may be in lakhs”. Obviously, all this did not happen overnight, so why didn’t the government take action in time? That the demolition issue had come to such a sorry pass because of persistent political connivance and corruption, as some have pointed out, may be a part of the explanation.

Even when the demolitions were going on, the courts had to direct the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and other local bodies on many occasions not to adopt a “pick and choose” policy and to initiate action against the big fish which had violated building laws with impunity. And the Centre is not alone in formulating a law to regularise violations of the law. Maharastra did it earlier when it promulgated an ordinance to regularise 855 illegal buildings in Ulhasnagar that were being threatened with demolition under the orders of the Bombay High Court. Here, too, politicians cutting across party lines supported the move.

... contd.