Gurgaon MC strikes at 39 Gwal Pahari plots to ‘reclaim’ land

The Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) carried out a demolition drive on Tuesday to remove structures such as boundary walls and hutments in order to secure ‘its land’ from encroachers at Gwal Pahari.

The MCG said the drive was carried out on 34 plots as the remaining 128 owners, who were served eviction notices, had obtained stay orders from the court.

The MCG action came nearly two months after former Gurgaon deputy commissioner TL Satyaprakash said that mutation 3249, which was the basis of the MCG’s claim to ownership of 464 acres of disputed land, was wrongly done.

The MCG later obtained a stay against the collector’s observation from the court of D Suresh, divisional commissioner, Gurgaon. On February 23, Suresh, while hearing the MCG’s plea, justified the civic body’s claim that the collector passed an order without jurisdiction. The opponents had, however, argued that Satyaprakash’s observation was an inquiry report that was sent for approval to the Haryana government.

The mutation that forms the basis of the MCG’s action was cancelled by two financial commissioners of revenue (FCR) in 2014 and 2015, quashing the MCG’s claim of land ownership.

The drive lasted for five to six hours. The enforcement team demolished boundary walls of three farmhouses and installed sign boards reading ‘MCG Land’ at the rest of the sites.

YS Gupta, joint commissioner, MCG, who was at the spot, said, “We have erased boundary walls and where there were no structures, we placed our signboards. We did not touch any site or land which got a stay from the court.” Some of these 34 sites were farmhouses and rest of the sites only had boundary walls. The MCG had sought a large police contingent for the drive. The civic body did not face any protest during the drive.

“The MCG is just doing a big drama. MCG’s men installed a CCTV camera a day earlier at a place suitable to record the heavy police deployment and big enforcement to prove their position. But, there were no big structures to demolish except a few boundary walls,” a Gwal Pahari resident said.

The 34 plot owners included a top politician of the ruling party. An MCG official said the land was still in the name of the politician as the ownership title was not changed in the revenue records despite it being sold.

Gwal Pahari land dispute had been a decades old battle between the village panchayat and land owners until 2010, when the MC replaced the panchayat.