BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Friday ordered a temoporary stay on the Mhow administration's order to demolish the ancestral house of the Al-Falah University founder-chairman Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui.
The Mhow Cantonment Board had pasted a notice on the three-storeyed house on Wednesday, asking the owners/legal heirs to remove the construction within three days, failing which it would be demolished. The authorities claimed that the house was constructed "illegally."
The present owner of the house, Abdul Majid, challenged the notice in the court, stating that three days was too little time to reply, and that no demolition action should be initiated till a proper reply is filed.
"Previous notices were served (by the Board) in 1996 and 1997, which is almost 30 years ago. Almost 30 years later another notice has been issued. If any action was to be taken against the petitioner after a period of almost 30 years, he ought to have been afforded an opportunity of hearing,” the single-judge bench of Justice Pranay Verma observed on Friday.
“It is directed that the petitioner shall file his reply along with all relevant documents before the respondents/competent authority within a period of 15 days from today. Thereafter, the petitioner shall be afforded due opportunity of hearing and thereafter a reasoned and speaking order in the matter shall be passed. Till the said exercise is completed, and for a period of ten days thereafter in case the order is against the petitioner, no coercive action shall be taken against him,” the HC stated while disposing of the petition.
Importantly, the three-storeyed house in the Mukeri Mohalla locality of Mhow was originally owned by Shahar Qazi Maulavi Hammad Ahmad Siddiqui.
After the Muslim cleric’s death, the entire family of around 16 children from Siddiqui’s three wives relinquished the house to his son and Al-Falah University head, Jawad Ahmad Siddiqui, who later gifted it to Abdul Majid.
"Majid, who was known to the family, has been in possession of the house for the last 4–5 years," his counsel Ajay Bagadiya told TNIE on Friday.
Abdul Majid, the current owner, petitioned the MP High Court’s Indore Bench challenging the Board’s Wednesday order.
"A Supreme Court order pertaining to demolition of properties by various state governments, including the MP and UP governments, clearly stipulated last year that any demolition action against illegal constructions must only be undertaken by following the appropriate legal process, giving at least 15 days to the property occupant/owner to respond," Bagadiya noted.
"Our submission before the HC was that in the show-cause notice served to the petitioner, it was not specified what portion of the house was actually encroachment. Also, the show-cause notice was served almost three decades after the previous notices, and the time given for responding to the notice was too little,” he said.