Supreme Court 'shouldn't be adamant', reconsider eviction order of Haryana villagers

By Nirmal Gorana*
The 50-year-old secular Khori village, near Suraj Kund tourist spot (Faridabad, Harayana), inhabited by various sections is on the verge of being uprooted because of the Supreme Court order. Despite the existence of various farmhouses and high rise hotel buildings , the government and the administration is only eyeing these 10,000 houses which house more than 1 lakh people.
Portions of land have been sold by the land mafias to the poor labourers under the nose of any authority without any objection. When in fact ,most of the labourers have been granted with their Aadhar cards. A resident welfare association was formed by the people of Khori and in 2010 problems of stay and rehabilitation of these residents was put before Punjab and Haryana High court.
This hearing took place on April 25, 2016 and April 29, 2016 where the labourers were assured rehabilitation but the promises remained unfulfilled. In 2017 Faridabad Municipal Corporation challenged this order in the Supreme Court.
In 2020, during the pandemic, the Supreme Court ordered removal of illegal encroachment on February 19. The labourers were asked to submit their legal documents by the Municipal Corporation but due to imposition of the nationwide lockdown amid the pandemic, these documents could not be submitted.
In September 2020, more than 1,700 houses were demolished by the Faridabad municipal corporation. Bandhua Mukti Morcha and Rashtriya Mazdur Aawas Sangharsh Samiti carried out sit-in protests and demanded rehabilitation for these poor labourers.
According to the Haryana Urban development Authority in 2010, rehabilitation would be granted only to the people residing in Khori before 2003. Because of this injustice faced by people, a PIL was filed in the Punjab and Haryana high court. However despite several hearings, the high court denied the stay as the matter was still pending in the supreme court.
Three hundred houses were again demolished by the municipal corporation on April 2, 2021. A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court (SLP) under Sareena Sarkar v State of Haryana where it prayed for immediate stay, but on June 7, 2021,the Supreme Court ordered to evict residents of Khori from the forest area within six weeks.
The decision was unwelcome and the residents of Khori protested against the order which led to the arrest of the protesters who were put under false charges. FIRs were filed on June 14 and 15 against protesters who were approximately more than 150 in number. Following this incident electricity and water supply was also cut off.
On June 15, 2021, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves visited Khori to take a report of the ground situation and brief the residents of the village about the order. On the same day, I was arrested by the Suraj Kund police and was put under police custody where I faced physical and mental abuse/ torture. He was repeatedly asked to go against his will to sign a blank paper which he refused. The police even threated and defamed me. Several charges were put against me, including section 180 CrPC.
I was produced before the magistrate by the Faridabad district court on June 16. However, I was released on bail despite the police demanding remand of three days. Till now more than 20 people have been put in jail and two people are still locked up for which these human rights lawyers are meticulously trying to get them released.
A number of online campaigns were organised by various organisations for the rehabilitation of the Khori villagers. More than 20,000 tweets and 1,500 emails were addressed to the District Commissioner, municipal corporation and the chief minister of Haryana.An ongoing struggle on workers housing by Bandhua Mukti Morcha, Rashtra Mazdur Awaas Sangharsha Samiti, Working Peoples Charter, Habitat & Livelihood Welfare Association, Basti Suraksha Manch ,National Alliance of People's Movements, Housing and Land Rights Network and Indo-Global Social Service Society is still in continuation.
On June 18, a press conference was organised by Bandhua Mukti Morcha where Medha Patkar, social activist, along with Colin Gonsalves, and I addressed the plight of Khori Gaon residents.
“Is the cut off date only for the marginalised people and not for the privileged? Right to shelter that comes under Right to Life and Liberty under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution should at least be granted to each and every individual. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the displacement of people should be stopped", Medha Patkar said.
"The people protesting against the eviction are not terrorists but social workers fighting under the constitutional machinery. It is suggested not to evict but provide rehabilitation to the people who once displaced would be deprived of any shelter”, she added.
I told the media, “Several labourers in the sit-in protests were manhandled by the police and were charged with multiple sections threatening to throw them behind bars. The eviction order would lead to a murder between the person and his land. Had the people of these marginalise section from rural spaces had some relief or opportunity in their areas, they would not have come to Khori and settled there."
On behalf of labourers, I would like to appeal that, if a labourer approaches the Supreme Court, it should reconsider its decision on the eviction order rather than staying adamant.

---
*General Secretary, Bandhua Mukti Morcha, New Delhi

Comments

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

Search This Blog