The land they were admittedly encroaching upon was acquired by the state government for building a canal which never materialised, and while the Supreme Court had in an earlier case asked the state to consider if it needed the land for ``any other public purpose'', there was no forthcoming answer from the state. In fact, the submissions of the counsel of the petitioners, C G Gavnekar that the land be used for housing them since this was also a ``public purpose'' were in vain. His plea that the removal be stayed till the state looked at the possibility of public housing were also not considered.

The land, at survey no 92 of Malegaon in Nashik district, acquired by the state government in 1961 for the construction of the Mosum Rice Canal, will now be returnedto the owner, Alka Bhalchandra Hinge.

A division bench of Justice Ashok Agarwal and Justice D K Deshmukh on April 5 dismissed the petition and in an order received last week maintained that ``whether the state needed the land for any other public purpose or not was a matter between the state government and the owner of the land. The petitioners have no locus in relation to the question''.

The court room of the division bench spilt over with a large number of the petitioners who had come to the court early April pleading against a 13 February, 1999 notice put out by the tehsildar of Malegaon giving them around a week's time to remove their hutments from the land. Kamaluddin Shamsuddin and the rest of the petitioners pleaded through their counsel that they be allowed to stay since they have been living on the land for the past 20 years. They stated that they were poor persons who eked out a living doing menial and odd jobs. They claimed that their structures had been assessed by the municipal council andthat they had also been given electricity and water connections.

The petitioners had earlier challenged a Bombay High Court order when the owner Alka Hinge first staked her claim on it. A division bench of Justice Ashok Desai and Justice Chandrashekhar Das had in an order dated 31 July 1997 directed the state government to remove the encroachments and report compliance within 72 hours. The state government too had challenged the order citing humanitarian considerations, and in a SLP in the Supreme Court obtained a stay on the order. The SC instead, in an order dated 17 April 1998, directed the state to decide as early as possible, if it needs the land for any other public purpose. If not, the land was to be returned to the owner.

A further High Court order of October 14, 1998 also dismissed a petition of the present petitioners and gave the state six months to do the needful. Since no proposal on a ``public purpose'' was forthcoming, the subsequent notices were issued in February this year asking thepetitioners to vacate the land.