Bombay HC pauses Thane dargah demolition after forest officials' U-turn on appeal
The Bombay High Court on Monday paused further demolition action at the Hazrat Peer Mamu Bhanje Dargah in Thane, expressing concern over what it described
The Bombay High Court on Monday paused further demolition action at the Hazrat Peer Mamu Bhanje Dargah in Thane, expressing concern over what it described as the forest authorities' contradictory stand on whether an appeal against the eviction proceedings was available to the shrine trust. A bench of Justice NJ Jamadar restrained forest officials from carrying out any further demolition and granted ad-interim relief to the shrine trust till August 10 while hearing a petition challenging a July 9 eviction notice issued by the Assistant Conservator of Forest (North), Yeoor. Read Full Story The notice had directed the trust to remove alleged unauthorised constructions on forest land within eight days, warning that the department would demolish the structures and recover the costs if it failed to comply.
The trust argued that the forest department had earlier informed the High Court that an appellate remedy was available before the Range Forest Officer of the Sanjay Gandhi Park in Mumbai. Based on that submission, the court had declined to entertain an earlier petition and the trust subsequently filed an appeal before the designated authority. However, the trust told the court that forest authorities later issued another notice stating that no such appellate provision existed and that the earlier statement regarding the appeal mechanism had been made inadvertently. The department then proceeded with demolition action. Appearing for the trust, advocate Amogh Singh argued that the authorities had taken a complete U-turn, leaving the petitioner without the remedy that had earlier been represented before the court.
The forest department, represented by advocate Kaushik Mhatre, submitted that the trust had been called for a hearing on July 17 and failed to appear, making the subsequent action justified. Justice Jamadar, however, questioned the change in the authorities' position and observed that the trust had effectively been left "in the lurch" after acting on the basis of representations previously made before the court. "The court is disconcerted with the course adopted by the respondents in making the court believe a certain state of affairs and pass orders on the basis of those representations," the judge observed. The court noted that after inducing the court to treat the matter as one where an appellate remedy existed, the authorities could not subsequently rely on a contrary position to justify coercive action against the petitioner.
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