by Shashank Sekhar
Delhi/Patna: The bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court consisting of Hon’ble Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and A. Amanullah has issued notice to senior IAS PMC Commissioner Animesh Parashar and other officials who bulldozed the petitioner Shailja Vajpeyi’s Chanakya Press Building on 12.08.2023 in spite of Stay having been granted by the Division Bench on 02.02.2023 by the Hon’ble Patna High Court and judgment having been reserved after final hearing on 11.08.2023 by the division bench presided by Hon’ble Chief Justice K. Vinod Chandran.
Though the final hearing for this case judgment was kept reserved on 11th August 2023, but the top PMC officials demolished the double-story building on the very next day that is on 12th August, without waiting for the court judgment.
As per Shrawan Kumar, Senior High Court Lawyer (Lawyer of the petitioner), the petitioner had moved the Hon’ble Patna High Court against partial demolition of Chanakya Press Building without any notice and any procedure, though the petitioner was in occupation of the building for more than 30 years and paying municipal rent regularly. The stay was granted in June.
Finally, the writ application was dismissed on extraneous facts by a learned single judge. An LPA was preferred, and the order of the learned single judge was stayed by the LPA bench on 2nd February 2023, and while the judgment was reserved by the bench presided over by Hon’ble the Chief Justice on 11th August, the very next day the building was bulldozed without waiting for the judgment and despite informing the demolition party that there was an order of stay and the judgment was pending. The demolition party clearly stated that they had orders from above.
Coming to know of this illegal demolition, the sumo moto cognizance was taken by the Chief Justice of Patna High Court for initiation of contempt proceeding vide Hon’ble High Court order dated 13th August 2024 against the PMC Commissioner and four others, and they were directed to file a show cause as to why the demolition was carried out without a court order.
The division bench of Hon’ble Ashutosh Kumar and Satyavrat Verma, who later heard this case, did not pass any order in the contempt matter punishing the guilty officers and ordered a small amount of compensation to be paid.
However, the compensation was not paid by the PMC Commissioner and others but was paid by the Patna Smart City Co Ltd. In the final order in LPA the land was not restored to the petitioner instead the liberty was given to the corporation to initiate appropriate proceedings against the petitioner.
The petitioner took the matter to the Hon’ble Supreme Court, which, on hearing, issued notice to the PMC commissioner and others, both against the order passed in LPA as well as in the contempt matter.
