To
Dr APJ Abdul Kalam
President of India
Sir,
In your address to the joint session of Parliament on
7 June 2004, you had said, "The outcome of the
elections is indicative of people's yearning for
inclusiveness... The verdict is for establishing the
rule of law". I find it hard to visualise a more
graphic case of demolition of the rule of law and of
exclusion than displayed by the circumstances leading
to the enactment of the Delhi Laws (Special
Provisions) Act, 2006. I invite your attention to the
following in the Bill as introduced in Lok Sabha on 10
May 2006 and reportedly notified on 20 May 2006:
1. The Bill/Act does not quite provide what is widely
understood to be its object, viz, "temporary relief to
the people of Delhi" from 'court-driven' demolition
and sealing of construction beyond sanctioned plans
and Master Plan non-compliant mixed use and clearance
of slums and hawkers. Section 3(2) does provide for
"notwithstanding any judgment, decree or order of any
court, status quo as on the 1st day of January, 2006"
and section 3(3) even suspends notices already issued
by local authorities. But section-4 clarifies that "no
relief shall be available under the provisions of
section 3 in respect of" "(b) commencement of any
commercial activity in residential areas in violation
of the provisions of the Master Plan for Delhi 2001"
(the phrase "on or after the 1st day of January, 2006"
was omitted from this clause by the Corrigendum) and
"(d) removal of slums and Jhuggi-Jhompri dwellers and
street vendors... for clearance of land required for
specific projects". The 'relief' is thus limited to
willful building permit violations.
2. The offer of this "temporary relief to the people
of Delhi" is, furthermore, "subject to" section 3(1),
which empowers Central Govt to "finalise norms, policy
guidelines and feasible strategies" "notwithstanding
anything contained in any relevant law or any rules,
regulations or bye-laws made thereunder". This, in
effect, empowers Central Govt to abandon / downsize
mandatory Master Plan solutions / entitlements in
respect of mixed use, slums/JJ, hawkers, etc, by
violating safeguards provided by statutory provisions
for Plan review and modification. The reference to
Master Plan 2021 preparation is misleading, as the
Bill/Act disregards due process for that to explicitly
favour competing processes. This is apparent from the
lengthier references to policies and Committee in
Preamble and Statement of Objects and Reasons and from
the proviso in clause (c) of section-4 to allow
encroachment on public land for slums and hawkers,
obviously to enable the 'pilot-projects' that central
and state Govt are making authorities pursue (eg,
hawker markets on streets in partnership with NGOs,
slum re-housing in district park in partnership with
builders, etc). For these extra-statutory pursuits by
extra-statutory processes, section-5 empowers Central
Govt to "from time to time, issue such directions to
the local authorities as it may deem fit, for giving
effect to the provisions of this Act and it shall be
the duty of the local authorities to comply with such
directions". This amounts to suspending the statutory
mandates of local authorities and, thereby, the
fundamental rights that those mandates give effect to
- without officially declaring a state of Emergency.
3. By this Bill/Act the 'court-driven' exercise of
powers for demolition and sealing - which vest in
authorities under Delhi Development Act only for its
purpose, viz, development according to Plan - stands
diverted to contrary purpose of advancing an
alternative development planning regime. It is
pertinent that the court orders against which 'relief'
is supposedly provided were all passed while hearings
were underway of objections / suggestions received in
response to statutory Public Notice for draft Master
Plan 2021 - ie, for seeking temporary relief within
the framework of law it may well have sufficed for
Govt to impress upon the Courts the imperatives of
pendency of Public Notice process. Instead, a
situation was created to allow barter between
'temporary relief for the people' and liberty to Govt
to violate all laws to advance patently inept policies
being vigorously advocated especially since 1999-2000
through extra-statutory 'stakeholder' processes that
now stand legitimised. The use of the phrase "the
public and other stakeholders" in Statement of Objects
and Reasons (para 2) is striking, as is the fact that
the Bill to provide illusory or contentious "temporary
relief" to "the public" on condition of unequivocal
empowerment of "other stakeholders" was not even
published for public scrutiny before being introduced
in the Lok Sabha. The report of the Committee that has
been statutorily empowered by this Act on 20 May, and
on which the Govt has assured the court on 18 May
action-taken report by July, is also not available to
public, imperatives of the much celebrated Right to
Information Act, 2005, notwithstanding.
By this Act the sinister import of the alternative
regime that is sought to be installed at any cost has
been as amply demonstrated as its inevitability. Such
Acts leaves no scope for prayers and I write this not
as graffiti on placard of belittled citizen ant facing
stakeholder road-roller but as snapshot of a
hopelessly dismaying moment in our faltering
democracy, in pure anguish.
Gita Dewan Verma, Planner
B.Arch (SPA, gold medalist); M.Planning (SPA, gold
medalist); PG Dip-Research (IHS-Rotterdam, top rank);
Dip-Training (DoPT)
Formerly: Senior Fellow (HUDCO-HSMI), Visiting Faculty
(SPA, TVB SHS), Consultant (DfID, IHSP, Nuffic,
UNICEF, etc)
Currently: Independent researcher / writer and
consultant to citizens' groups on MPISG and
enterprises on AZ-Plan synergy platforms
Text of Bill as introduced in Lok Sabha on 10 May
2006:
http://www.manupatra.com/downloads/2006-data/laws1.pdf
Corrigenda:
http://www.manupatra.com/downloads/2006-data/071.pdf
cc: az plan
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