40 houses on Patna University land razed
2 min readPatna: The state government on Tuesday said it has demolished 40 houses that had come up on the Golakpur land of Patna University, the announcement coming at a Patna High Court hearing on encroachment on the varsity land.
The government reply came on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by social activist Vikash Chandra a.k.a Guddu Baba, who had informed the court that there were 275 encroachments on the university campus and campuses of constituent colleges.
A division bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad is hearing the case.
The government also told the court that actions were being taken against rest of the defaulters who had built houses illegally on the Golakpur land.
Patna University acquired the Golakpur land in 1955 to build the Bihar College of Engineering. The area of the land which is encroached upon spreads to around 3 acres, Guddu Baba told The Telegraph.
On February 10 this year, a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Patna district magistrate (DM) Kumar Ravi in which the DM had ordered the Patna Sadar circle officer to remove the encroachments with immediate effect.
The DM’s order came in the wake of the high court direction to the district administration to rid the Golakpur land of encroachers.
Earlier, on the direction of the high court, a committee was set up comprising principal secretaries of the education and revenue departments, Patna divisional commissioner Anand Kishor, the then Patna DM Sanjay Kumar Agarwal and the Patna University Registrar, to look into the Golakpur land issue and identify the encroached land.
In its earlier directive, the high court had said that it was not difficult to imagine the nature of disturbance to the students and teachers from the unauthorised encroachers. It was the responsibility of the state to ensure that public property, that too where the institutions of higher education are located, are protected from encroachment, the court had said.
The next hearing of the case is on June 19.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
