Five engineers from the Surat Municipal Corporation were suspended from work in Surat on Wednesday after the Gujarat High Court stayed the authorities over the controversial demolition of over 100 houses in the Nasirnagar area of the city without any official orders.
The demolition was carried out over three days from May 30 to June 1, destroying more than 100 houses in Nasirnagar, a slum in Surat’s Ved Darwaja area. When questions were initially raised about the demolition, no government agency came forward to claim responsibility.
Twenty-six residents filed a complaint with the Supreme Court protesting the demolitions that took place without notifying residents. During the hearing on June 29, Justice Nikhil Karel said that police protection was sought only to demarcate the land boundaries, and that police personnel on the site should have intervened when the agency began demolishing the homes.
The bench also questioned the role of senior police officers in the entire episode and issued notice to builder Sanjay Lakhani on allegations that the demolition was carried out for the benefit of a project linked to him.
The five municipal officials who have been suspended are executive engineer Sugalkumar Prajapati, executive engineer GR Jeevanramjewala, deputy engineer Arpit Parmar, assistant engineer Mohsin Ghadia, and junior engineer Nareshkumar Jalchar, all of whom are associated with the civil wing of the corporation, according to an official statement from the SMC.
According to SMC, those responsible were suspended based on the findings of the fact-finding committee formed to examine the demolition process. The company said the suspension was necessary to ensure the department’s investigation was conducted in a fair and impartial manner.
In a written reply submitted to the Gujarat High Court, Municipal Commissioner M. Nagarajan said that the SMC had not issued any demolition orders.
Nagarajan said the officials were only at the site to demarcate land boundaries related to a long-standing dispute over privately owned land. SMC Standing Committee Chairman Rajan Patel also took a similar stand during the proceedings, saying police deployment was only required for the demarcation process.
The case is scheduled to be heard again by the Gujarat High Court on July 2, when the company is expected to present the findings of its fact-finding committee.
