Inhabitants Of Village Saddal vs State Of J&K And Others

This matter has been filed by the displaced inhabitants of Village Saddal, Tehsil Mongri, District Udhampur, which was devastated in a flash land slide which took place in the year 2014. The writ petition has been necessitated on account of the failure of the respondents to take any steps to rehabilitate the land slide affected families for this long period of over 5 years. The land slide is stated to have resulted in 40 deaths and damage to 123 houses, while number of animals and live stocks were buried.

The disaster victims are stated to have been shifted to Village Panjar and live in dismal conditions in tents. For the reason that Panjar was also unsafe, the villagers were shifted to Village Sui where they have been put in two big halls with temporary partitions in spaces of 10'X10'. The villagers have complained that, shockingly, neither adequate or appropriate toilet facilities nor running drinking water even have been provided to them.

In this background, we had called for a report from the Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Mr. Pawan Kotwal, Principal Secretary, Revenue Department had appeared before this Court on 5th of February, 2020 and assured this Court that the complete module for rehabilitation which would include the transfer of land; the lay out plan; the proposed infrastructure and facilities; the development and construction which has to be undertaken as well as allotment of land to the affected persons with the specific dates and timelines within which the same would be completed, shall be placed before this Court.

We had also been assured that the nodal officers not below the rank of Directors in the concerned departments, who would be responsible for ensuring that the timelines are adhered to, would be appointed.

Mr. Kotwal had further informed us that the department concerned with relief and rehabilitation is the Department of Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction.

We had consequently, given time to Mr. S.S. Nanda, learned Sr. AAG to place before us a proper timeline of the various steps needed. This has not been done despite opportunities granted on 5th February, 2020 and 13th March, 2020.

Today, we are informed by Mr. Nanda that he has in hand a compliance report dated 19th March, 2020 being filed which is supported by an affidavit of Mr. Sunil Kumar, Additional Secretary to Government, Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction department. A copy of this report has been handed over to us. This report manifests that for the first time, action has been initiated in the matter by the departments only after the letter dated 16th March, 2020, i.e., long after the writ petition was filed and we have passed several orders therein.

What is placed before us is the contents of a letter of the Deputy Commissioner, Udhampur, who is stated to have furnished a DPR along with timelines. We are astonished to see that the only effort made therein is to propound the estimated cost of work while the timeline merely states that the work could be completed within four or eight months "from the date the funds are made available to this office and subject to the allotment of land".

This is clearly an effort to push the responsibility from one department to another.

The Court orders mandated that a complete chain of the manner in which the matter of rehabilitations would proceed is placed in a composite affidavit to be filed by the departments. This kind of piece-meal consideration is, to say the least, most unfortunate.

Given the distress of the population concerned, we have no option but to direct as follows:-

(i) Let this matter be placed before the Chief Secretary, who may examine the matter and ensure that all clearances and permissions as are necessary for execution of the project of rehabilitation of these affected families/population are granted, the rehabilitation commenced and completed at the earliest and ensure that firm time lines are placed before us.

(ii) Needless to say that the same shall be done as expeditiously as possible, given the dire conditions in which the effected families are living.

(iii) We find that the various departments in the Government are uniformly adopting this practice of looking at every matter from the perspective of that department alone, even though the matter requires inter-departmental consultation. Let a mechanism be evolved so that, Court cases are addressed from the perspective of placing a composite stand of the Government after inter-departmental consultation.

(iv) The respondents shall also examine the issues relating to avalanches/natural disasters and consequential reliefs / rehabilitation / compensation. If no SPO/policy is in place, the same be formulated and placed before us.

Mr. Aseem Sawhney, learned AAG prays for a short adjournment to place the decision which has been taken with regard to the bills which were raised on Mr. Shanku Ram.

Let the same be done before the next date.

List on 22nd April, 2020.