Role of the Supreme Court is to uphold human rights, not undermine them: UN experts

The Supreme Court while dealing with a plea concerning the demolition of 10,000 houses in the case of Sarina Sarkar and Others v. State of Haryana and Others, directed for the removal of all encroachments on the forest land of Aravalli within 6 weeks. Pursuant to this order, on 14th July 2021, the demolition began, rendering 100,000 people, including 20,000 children, homeless in the midst of a pandemic. 

Over 2,000 police personnel were deployed to maintain law and order. The police had heavily barricaded entry and exit points to the village.  

This situation is a decade-old legal battle, the case first reached the judiciary in 2010, when a group called the Khori Gaon Welfare Association moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the demolition exercise. In 2012, another resident group, called the Khori Gaon Colony Kalyan Samiti, filed a writ petition in the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking regularization of their homes, or, alternatively, rehabilitation. To the Supreme Court and the district administration, the residents are encroachers on government land comprising sensitive forests. The residents contend that they are a victim of fraud by a mafia who sold them these lands by manufacturing false documents. The Haryana government has said it is discussing resettlement options, but only for those who belong to the state. However, the policy under which they are likely to be rehabilitated has been challenged in court by the residents, who say its cut-off date of 2003 would leave most of them out in the cold.

United Nations Human Rights experts urged the Indian government to rethink the demolition, emphasizing the glaring hardships endured by the displaced and reminded it of its own objective of eliminating homelessness by 2022. It went onto state that “No one should be forcibly evicted without adequate and timely compensation”. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in a statement, appealed to the Indian government “to respect its own laws and its own goal of eliminating homelessness by 2022 and to spare homes of 100,000 people who mostly come from minority and marginalized communities”.