Environmentalist Lt. Col. (retd.) Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi on Saturday submitted an application before the Supreme Court in Khori Basti case that the wall of an illegal farmhouse belonging to former Haryana Minister was being rebuilt just a few months after it was demolished by the Municipal Corporation of Faridabad in pursuant of court orders.
Minister’s farmhouse
The four-page application filed by Mr. Oberoi through his counsel Amiy Shukla said that the court had directed the Faridabad Municipal Corporation to clear the unauthorised structures on the forest land earlier this year, and the farmhouse belonging to Vipul Goel, who was Environment Minister of Haryana in the previous BJP Government, was demolished. However, the rebuilding of the demolished structure has now started.
Mr. Oberoi submitted the pictures, taken on December 3, of the partially demolished and the newly built boundary wall of the farmhouse belonging to the former Minister.
Listed in affidavit
As per the application, the farmhouse spread across 10.9 acre is situated in Ankhir village of Faridabad and is covered under Section 4 and 5 of the Punjab Land Preservation Act. The farmhouse is at serial no. 3 among 123 illegal encroachments listed in affidavit filed by the Haryana Forest Department before the National Green Tribunal in the matter titled Sonya Ghosh vs. State of Haryana & Ors.
In reply to an additional affidavit of the Haryana Government, Mr. Oberoi had last month pointed out as to how the departments concerned had carried out cosmetic demolition of the boundary walls of the illegal structures on the forest land in pursuant to court order just to produce photographs as evidence of demolition.
Mr. Oberoi had brought out the fact that the demolished boundary walls of these structures could be rebuilt in just a couple of days and in some case the reconstruction of walls had already started.
