The Supreme Court intervened twice on Wednesday to pause the advancement of bulldozers in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri for an anti-encroachment drive, but not before several makeshift kiosks and shops lining the area that witnessed a communal clash on Saturday were razed by civic authorities.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana ordered that “status quo, as exists today, shall be maintained until further orders” while halting the “special joint encroachment removal programme” initiated by the BJP-ruled, Union Home Ministry-controlled North Delhi Municipal Corporation in Jahangirpuri.
“Maintain status quo. We will list it tomorrow [on Thursday],” Chief Justice Ramana said briefly in the morning when senior advocate Dushyant Dave and advocate Subhash Chandran, for the residents, sought the court’s immediate intervention against the corporation’s bulldozers.
