A division bench of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice S A Bobde directed the Chief Secretary to “look into and fix responsibilities as to the role of officers responsible for protecting land and also regarding eviction within two weeks.”

The court also directed the Chief Secretary to state “what action is to be proposed against officers for dereliction of duty.” The Navi Mumbai Action Committee had filed a public interest litigation last year seeking removal of encroachers from the reserved plot measuring 4.54 hectares.

According to the petition, the land belongs to CIDCO as per a RTI reply. CIDCO had earlier told the court that part of the land belonged to the government.

The court was miffed by the fact that in spite of several adjournments and direction, none of the departments has filed an undertaking to remove the encroachers.

On Tuesday, CIDCO’s counsel told the court that they have to conduct a survey first to determine the number of encroachers and those eligible for rehabilitation as per the government policy.

CIDCO stated that survey cannot be carried out without police protection and sought two months' time for the same.

On hearing that no survey has been carried out till now, Justice Nazki said, “We don’t know how they would do their job if they don’t know how many encroachers are there.” The court also observed that various agencies through their affidavits were blaming each other without providing any solution to the issue.

Assistant government pleader Pradeep Patil had submitted an affidavit filed by R D Shinde, DCP of Navi Mumbai, which stated that the reason for not giving protection to CIDCO in March 2006 was due to riots. “Riots created a furious issue of law and order situation in the entire area which continued for a period of six months,” the affidavit said.

The affidavit further states that on October 11, 2006 nine to ten hutments were removed after giving police protection.

Vijaykumar Kadam, Chief Controller of Unauthorised Constructions, CIDCO in his affidavit had sought nine months’ time to conduct a survey. “As per the RTI reply the land belongs to CIDCO, and the corporation is not responsible for removing encroachers,” said Anirudha Garge, counsel for Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation.