India

Report questions lapses in Jai Bhim Nagar demolition

The demolition rendered hundreds homeless in unforgiving monsoon.

Credit : Sahid Faris/Maktoob

 

The state used brute force, including police and various administrative departments, to carry out a demolition without due procedure, rendering hundreds of people homeless during Mumbai’s unforgiving monsoon season, according to a report by Collective Mumbai, a student organisation. Collective Mumbai, on Wednesday, published a detailed report, titled 'Jai Bhim Nagar against Builder Raj', on the demolition of houses in Mumbai’s Jai Bhim Nagar last year.

On June 6, 2024, merely three days after a notice of eviction was put up outside their settlement, the police carried out demolition of the homes in Jai Bhim Nagar in Mumbai’s Powai. The settlement has been located outside Powai’s posh township Hiranandani Gardens since 1987. It began as a labour camp.

“Migrant construction workers from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other regions were settled here by the then-emerging building contractor Hiranandani. At the time, the Hiranandani group was supposed to construct low-cost housing under the government’s Powai Area Development Scheme. This project would transform into a luxury township called Hiranandani Gardens,” the report says.

 

Violations in Jai Bhim Nagar case

The land where Jai Bhim Nagar was located has been engulfed in controversies since late 1960s. Since 2005, some of its residents have been trying to get the land transferred to their names to no avail from Lake View Developers, a Hiranandani subsidiary. However, in 2007, the Supreme Court rejects Lake View Developers’s claim, settling that the company does not own the land. Despite this, the report says that Hiranandani’s actions to take over the land and evict the residents have continued.

 

 

On June 3, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) put up a notice of eviction at 3 pm.

“The notice was, however, dated 1st June. This was a day before the parliament election results, with the Model Code of Conduct still in place in Maharashtra. The resolution passed by the Department of Urban Development, restraining demolition during monsoon was also subsisting at the time,” the report adds.

The residents began peaceful protests against the eviction notice. However, they have alleged that on June 6, Hiranandani goons infiltrated their protests and pelted stones at the police, which led to the police action against the residents of Jai Bhim Nagar.

“They brought all the goons, and the police started to charge everyone with sticks. The public got angry. We didn't know who was being attacked. The police force is there to fight the robbers and culprits, but instead, they attack the people in the house. They didn’t even leave children or women,” one of the residents Nivruti Sopan Sabrai was quoted by the report.

 

Photo: Satish Bate/ Hindustan Times

 

The report also documents the incidents of police brutality during the demolition drive. “The police used this as an excuse to brutally attack residents with disproportionate use of force. They beat up the public indiscriminately, not sparing the old or the young. A ten-year-old child was beaten up, taken into custody, and made to sit in the police van for hours. Many older women who were trying to protect their kids from the police, or gathering whatever little of belongings they could were also beaten up ruthlessly. Anyone attempting to document this spectre of injustice was especially targeted, and their phones were snatched away from them. All evidence of the brutality was erased from their devices,” it says.

 

Collusion of forces for demolition

The report states that the demolition was made possible by the collusion of various departments across authorities, like the BMC, Mumbai Police and the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). It also says that on the day of the demolition, personnel of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) and the Rapid Action Force (RAF) were present at the location.

“The SHRC, BMC and Mumbai Police acted in tandem over the years to orchestrate the will of the Hiranandani builders. When the SHRC first issued an order for demolition, the BMC stated that it could not demolish constructions on private land. However, the SHRC, for unfathomable reasons, persisted in its attempts and eventually succeeded on 6 June 2024. Over the years, Hiranandani could never explicitly prove to be legitimate owners of the land, yet the authorities treated the Hiranandani group as the owner at various points,” the report states.

Speaking at the publication of the report, Human rights activist Prof. Anand Teltumbde said, “Today, the basic principle that India will stand by law is compromised. They did not give you notice, bulldozed your homes in monsoon months. Interestingly, Maharashtra State Human Rights Commission was instrumental in the demolition.”

 

 

The report further says, “No survey of the basti was carried out to ascertain how long the residents of Jai Bhim Nagar have been living at the disputed site. Had this been done, it would reveal that most residents have documents proving their residency for over three decades, entitling them to protection against demolition under the Slum Area Act.”

After the demolition and the arrests, the remaining residents took to the footpath and have been living there since.

“The mass arrests were to dent the resistance within the basti. They had to split their attention and efforts to get their neighbours out of jail, tend to the wounds of those that the police had beaten up, and worry about surviving each day of the brutal Mumbai monsoon,” the report adds.

Shiv Sagar, one of the residents of Jai Bhim Nagar, who had just returned from his night shift when he got caught in the police beating and was arrested said, “They never let us make any documents that could prove that these are our homes. Still, before demolition, my life was on track. But now, it has become difficult to even survive. In jail, we were treated as if we were murderers. All of this for a small piece of land, without any mistake of ours. Now I have no job, and I am unable to even apply for any. My injuries have made everything very difficult for me.”

 

Legal limitations

The report says that the legal course of action so far is focussed only on the police brutality on the day of demolition.

“An investigation by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) constituted by the Mumbai High Court has already found the demolition illegal. The Mumbai Police were directed to file an FIR against BMC's S ward officials, the Hiranandani group, and four associates in October 2024. No arrests have been made. Questions have yet to be raised regarding the ownership of the land itself. No civil suit has been filed in the court challenging the grounds for demolition,” it adds.

The residents approached the vice president of Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and a member of Indian National Congress (INC) Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan for legal assistance of those arrested. Naseem Khan provided legal aid and facilitated their bail process. Following this, he extended legal support in filing a criminal writ petition in the Mumbai High Court, which is currently ongoing, as per the report.

Scholar Gaurav Bhatia points out that the basic problem arises because socio-economic rights like the right to food or the right to shelter are not listed in India’s Constitution.

“It is because of the time when our Constitution was written. More modern constitutions like those of South Africa or Kenya have these rights incorporated. India’s various courts have time and again interpreted the existing laws to ensure these rights to the people,” Bhatia said.

He cited the ‘Olga Tellis vs Bombay Municipal Corporation’ judgment in 1985 wherein the Supreme Court had ruled that eviction of pavement dwellers using unreasonable force, without giving them a chance to explain is unconstitutional.

 

 

However, he said, the same judgment allowed displacement of pavement dwellers and said giving notice was desirable, but in emergency cases, could be dismantled.

Bhatia also cited the important Delhi High Court judgment in Ajay Maken & Ors. vs Union Of India & Ors. case, with regard to the displacement of people living in a basti near railway land. The court drew the earlier judgment and international law and said that before the State displaces someone, regardless of whether they are illegal or not, there should be a set of compliances, which would include survey, verification, meaningful engagement with residents, and a dignified rehabilitation package, etc. And demolition cannot be carried out until all of this is done.

“On one hand there are these cases, and on the other hand, we see derogatory references to people as encroachers, who are seen as essentially rightless because they are squatting on public land. They cannot come to court to demand rights. So there is a line of judges that does exactly the opposite. Hence, there is always a need for strategies outside these legal frames as well,” Bhatia said.

“Jai Bhim Nagar's demolition reflects this long-standing displacement pattern, where working people, the motor to the city’s growth, are sacrificed for private gain. The long struggle to occupy the footpath after displacement has presented some of these aspects more sharply,” the report says.

 

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