THE CUBAN CIGAR BAR VARIETY…  THE `TO BE CELEBRATED’ STRUGGLES… I AM A WOMAN AND I DO NOT SHY AWAY FROM SMOKING A CUBAN CIGAR ON THIS VICTORY…

This victory which I am going to narrate is the `Cuban Cigar Bar’ variety…because it is about a matter that was a flash of lightening when I, in 2009 under the Right to Education, intervened to save 8 acres of educational land  ( alongside was awarded the victory over the rest of 7 acres of public infrastructure land) from the clutches of those who were hell bent to grab that  land in order to use it for building multi-storied flats…a la property dealer and irresponsible builder coterie variety…totally unmindful and deliberately so, of what such misdeeds would turn the city infrastructure into…

Now a Govt. girls’ school , a higher secondary one, is housed in that land , where 1250- to about 1350 -1500 girls study.

It was a very tough fight where not only this land admeasuring 8 acres was released from the clutches of the land grabbers but also the rest of public infrastructure land , about 7 acres in addition to this 8 acres was won back for the people…all in all 15 acres. This public infrastructure is mainly Green Area and the rest is the utility like roads inside the locality.

This matter originated in 1994 but I came on the scene in 2009 . Amongst many quotable quotes was one by Justice Vikramjit Sen who, when the said higher secondary school was to be housed in porta-cabins and the land grabbers represented by their lawyer resented the same ,said in his order `that no amount of money was too much to educate a girl child’…and rubbished and dismissed the land grabbers’ application to stall and stop the installation of porta cabins for the girls’ school. That argument was like smoking  `a Cuban Cigar’ … the Hon’ble Justice Vikramjit Sen blasted the unreasonable demands of the land grabbers and their cronies spread all over the rickety system.

I reported the ongoing highhandedness of the land grabbers to the press and was slapped with a defamation suit worth 2.5 crores…my family members were included in the suit…perfect arm twisting…the press was not spared either…they were dragged into the defamation suit …just for writing the `land grabbers’ as `land mafia’… the suit against me and everybody else was dismissed as without cause.

Putting it concisely, I was threatened personally, on the phone, in person, accosted by goondas with most ugly invectives and pressures , the stuff that would have scared any other woman …I was imposingly offered bribe worth many crazy crores and flats  and even my family members were directed to rein me in or face the consequences…I do not know what gave me the strength to overcome all this… I WAS UNRELENTING…the more the threats …the more dogged was my determination…

Success in the matter was achieved in 2012 in the Delhi High Court  , the Bench comprising of the Hon’ble Justice Ravindra Bhatt and Hon’ble Justice S. C  Garg . The matter was brought in a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court of India and there also the land grabbers lost and I won once again in 2015, the Supreme Court Bench comprising of Justice T.S Thakur and Justice Bhanumati.  The High Court Justice Ravindra Bhatt who wrote the Judgment blasted the land grabbers’ lawyers in the High Court ande the Govt. departments, that is the DDA. The Education Department, the Urban Affairs Ministry were reprimanded in no uncertain terms in the Delhi High Court for sitting on the files for 20 odd years and also not showing the records to the Court. In fact the commitment that I as the petitioner showed was at first not believed by the Court but when the truth came up every thing was sorted out. Truth took its toll on the land grabbers and their high handed highly priced lawyers, much much senior to fall so from dirt to dirt and in absolute arbitrariness in supporting the unholy nexuses…so much about our senior lawyers well versed in the `art and science of lawyering’ but rubbished as very low in ethics and morality by the Delhi High Court. And so suitably by the Supreme Court Bench of Justice T.S Thakur and Justice Bhanumati.

Will bring more on this struggle  ….the upholding of Truth , and Ethics and Morality…