HC serves contempt notice to civic chief G Sreekanth

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court comprising Justice R G Avachat and Justice S A Deshmukh today (June 15) ordered serving notice as a ‘contemnor’ to the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar Municipal Corporation (CSMC) administrator, G Sreekanth (in person), in connection with a contempt petition filed in the court. The next hearing on the petition will be held on June 19.

The petitioners Shaikh Umar Shaikh Chand and Masood Ahmed Jamil Ahmed filed a contempt petition through Adv A T Patel and Adv Sanket Kulkarni. They stated that Shaikh Masood owns 1784 square metres of land, out of 7186 square metres of land bearing CTS No. 3194 in Buddi Lane, while Shaikh Umar and Shaikh Hasnuddin own the remaining land.

They further stated that former minister of state (and present minister) Abdul Sattar and his son Abdul Sameer, submitted an application, to the municipal corporation, on December 22, 2020, stating that the land situated at Buddi Lane is owned by them and has been encroached. Hence they requested that the municipal commissioner and police commissioner remove the encroachments from their (above) land.

Hence the municipal corporation served notices to the petitioners on December 31, 2020, stating to vacate the possession. In response to it, the petition was filed in the HC and the bench granted an ‘interim protection’ (or interim relief) to the petitioners in connection with the vacating of the land on February 1, 2021. The order was brought into effect till June 8, 2023. The bench, while disposing of the petition on June 8, granted relaxation to the petitioners to approach the civil court. The court also retained the ‘interim protection’ for the next 45 days.

Accordingly, the second petition was also disposed of by the bench on June 13, 2023, as per the above order. However, the court ordered the municipal corporation to serve notice to the petitioners and record their say through a hearing. Accordingly, the municipal corporation served notices to the petitioners on June 14, and the hearing was scheduled for June 16. However, today (on June 15) morning, the municipal authorities along with the police and a few others reached the spot and tried to grab the possession forcibly from them. Hence the petitioners filed the contempt petition in the court.