Hearing on contempt plea against MCG head deferred

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday deferred till April 8 a contempt case filed by Sikanderpur marble traders against Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) commissioner Sudhir Rajpal.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday deferred till April 8 a contempt case filed by Sikanderpur marble traders against Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) commissioner Sudhir Rajpal.

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With this, the Sikanderpur marble market land evacuation issue has slipped into a legal quagmire.

The traders had filed the case on March 24 as Rajpal had lodged FIRs against 19 traders at DLF-1 police station on March 21. Earlier, the traders had filed a contempt case against Huda administrator Praveen Kumar and former MCG joint commissioner YS Gupta for removing marble pieces on the encroached area during a drive on January 9 and 10.

Hearing the case, the court itself had directed the MCG commissioner to serve a 24-hour notice to ‘encroachers’.

On March 21, the commissioner lodged FIRs against 19 traders for not vacating the land and tampering with seized marbles on March 19.

Plots were allotted to 34 traders in 1999 by the district administration on a five-year lease that ended in 2004. The MCG and Huda had jointly carried out sealing drives against shopkeepers and threatened to auction the marble. However, they changed their minds later and said the seized articles would be used for public cause.