Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 17 (IANS) Saying that “anything could happen in this country”, the Supreme Court Wednesday ordered the resealing of 149 shops of a market allegedly built on a green belt in north Delhi.

An apex court bench of Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice G.S. Singhvi passed the “resealing” order against Razapur market in Rohini area during the hearing on two reports submitted by its monitoring committee dealing with illegal constructions.

The court ordered the resealing after its query seeking a copy of Lt. Governor Tejinder Khanna’s order of Dec 1, 2010, directing de-sealing of 54 shops in the market, could not be answered satisfactorily.

The court sought the copy of the order, saying that it wanted to know the mind of Khanna when he passed the de-sealing order.

“We want to know the mind of the Lt. Governor (when he passed the de-sealing order). Was he aware of the proceedings before the Supreme Court. Was he told about it or he took it upon himself to decide,” Justice Sirpurkar asked.

Upon not getting the copy of the orders passed by Khanna, the court said: “It does give an impression that it was a telephonic order.”

The court was told that Khanna ordered de-sealing of 54 shops and other shopkeepers themselves tampered with the seals and broke them open.

The court adjourned the hearing on the monitoring committee’s report seeking vacation of space in front of shops in Khan Market in central Delhi and Sarojini Nagar Market in south Delhi.

The matter would come up for hearing in the last week of August.