Lucknow, Feb 28 : The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Tuesday said that those owning multi-storey constructions, commercial properties and business establishments and those who file GST and income tax returns, cannot be termed as slum dwellers merely because they live in houses built on government land.

The dismissal of petitions which sought retention of their properties on 'government land' along the Kukrail River in the Akbar Nagar area by the court has paved the way for Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) to demolish the houses of petitioners

A division bench of Justice Vivek Chaudhary and Justice O.P. Shukla said, 'The petitioners are not suffering any of the challenges faced by the actual slum dwellers of the said slum. In the given circumstances, it is not possible for this court to accept that the showrooms/workshops of petitioners can be called as existing in a slum area.'

The bench added, 'At best, the petitioners exist at the edge of Akbar Nagar slum area and not in the said slum area. Similarly, the facts that they have had enough money to spend on illegal construction of huge showrooms/workshops, are paying their GST and filing income tax returns and/or most of them are having their own residences in good and posh localities of city and/or other properties, we are unable to hold them as slum dwellers.'

In the course of hearing the bench had segregated the matters of these well-to-do petitioners from poor slum dwellers.

Refuting the argument of the petitioners that since their accommodation existed in the Akbar Nagar area, they also would be termed as slum dwellers, the bench observed, 'Presuming in a slum, a businessman finding good business opportunity takes possession of a large piece of land from the actual slum dwellers and illegally, without required sanctions, constructs a multiplex or a big hotel or a big shopping complex or raises any other such big business constructions. Can he, merely because he did these activities within a slum, claim to be a slum dweller entitled to the protection given to dingy houses of slum dwellers, despite all aspects of the matter reflecting his disparity with actual slum dwellers? The answer 'no' comes to us too loudly.'

/IANS