On the contested land, there are more than 4,000 families and up to 50,000 residents, the bulk of whom were Muslims. The authorities have to find a "practical way out", a bench of Justices S K Kaul and A S Oka remarked, noting that many of the residents have asserted they had lived there for more than 50 years.
The Supreme Court overturned the High Court's decision, stating that 50,000 people cannot be uprooted overnight and that it was a "human issue". On December 20, the Uttarakhand High Court issued an order requiring the removal of encroachments from railway property.
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The Uttarakhand High Court's orders to remove encroachments on 29 acres of railway land in Haldwani were overturned by the Supreme Court, which received praise from the Congress for its decision. Thousands of people whose homes were set to be demolished in the winter now feel relieved as a result of the decision.
"Following the HC order in Haldwani, Railways sent notices to around 4,400 families regarding the land encroachment. Senior Congress leader and advocate Salman Khurshid ji raised this matter in the Supreme Court," the party said in a tweet in Hindi.
After the decision, 4,365 encroachments that had residents who had been residing there for years were about to be removed. In defiance of a High Court decision, the residents who face eviction have been protesting the clearance of encroachments from railway land.
"We had said that the government will work as per the order of the court. The matter was between the Railways and the court, we were nowhere in it. Some people have unnecessarily tried to create an atmosphere that everything is being done by the government due to the politics of protest," Dhami told ANI.
(With agency inputs)
