After years of non-intervention, the Ministry of Urban Development has stiffly opposed allotment of any additional land to the Delhi High Court, which has already added 9.69 acres to the original allotment of 7.89 acres it received in 1968.

A confrontation is brewing during on-going hearings of a public interest litigation filed by the Delhi High Court Bar Association. While the ministry has questioned further allotment of land, the petitioners, during oral arguments, have demanded an additional 20 acres in the Kaka Nagar area for various expansion projects of the High Court.

Interestingly, this demand of 20 acres comes at a time when 2.8 acres is finally being leveled for use of the High Court and for which eight C1 and C-11 type government bungalows and an NDMC school have recently been demolished in the Bapa Nagar area. Two senior bureaucrats (a retired special secretary and a deputy director general in the DRI), who received eviction orders before the Bapa Nagar demolitions, filed applications during the PIL case hearings pleading for an extension of their allotments, but were not heeded to.

Officials in the UD Ministry say that due to frequent demands for additional land, Additional Solicitor General Vikas Singh has been put on the case. The ASJ has now demanded that the Bar Association provide details of utilisation of the 2.8 acres as well as explain why the unutilised 45,000 square meters of floor area ratio (calculated against provisions of Delhi’s new master plan) cannot be used for the expansion proposals.

... contd.