The Pioneer 09.12.2010
58 shops built by Puri Municipality demolishedPioneer News Service | Puri
After a prolonged legal battle, finally the shops constructed by the Puri Municipality by encroaching the public main drain on the both sides of the Grand Road and allotted to businessmen were demolished by the district administration on Wednesday.
A senior lawyer of the Puri Bar Association Jogendra Dash initiated complaints in different legal forums that municipality had illegally constructed the shops on drains which were causing obstruction in free flow of the waste water in the drains and often over flowing spilling garbage on the Grand Road. As outcome of the complaints went unheeded, he knocked doors of the Odisha High Court in 2007. The High Court after hearing the complaint directed the district administration to remove the illegal constructions. Still nothing moved. Dash invoked the High Court’s contempt of court jurisdiction against the District Magistrate.
The High Court summoned personal appearance of the District Magistrate and directed him to carry out the order. The businessmen likely to be displaced moved their cause in the High Court which asked the District Magistrate to hear their plea. The District Magistrate on the Saturday heard their petition and finding no merit dismissed their plea while in strong words condemned the role of the civic body, which encouraged illegal encroachments of public drain.
As the civic council did not carry out the court order, RDC PK Mahapatra asked the district administration to remove the constructions over the drains. Five platoons of armed police led by Additional District Magistrate Prasanta Kumar Senapati conducted the demolition operation which would take a couple of days, said an official. Hundreds of men supported by two heavy earth mover machines were engaged in the operation. Fifty eight shop constructed over drains between Bagala Dharmshalla to Gundicha temple by the municipality and were allotted to vendors would be demolished.
