CHANDIGARH: The Haryana government on Friday submitted to the Punjab and Haryana high court that the incident of Nuh violence was not a case of “ethnic cleansing“.

The state also claimed before the HC that due procedure under the law had been followed before carrying out the demolition drive in Nuh and Gurgaon. The state, however, submitted that it would file a detailed reply on the issue.

The state counsel also submitted that the matter should not be permitted to become a “political agenda”.
These assertions were made by the state government before the bench comprising Justice Arun Palli and Justice Jagmohan Bansal when the matter related to Nuh violence came up for hearing.

However, the division bench of Justice Arun Palli did not hear the matter observing that “the case being a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) should have been listed before the Chief Justice’s bench as per the HC rules”.
With this, the case would now be heard by the bench of Chief Justice Ravi Shanker Jha, who is on leave and has not been holding court for the past few days.

Sharing the details of the proceedings, Deepak Sabharwal, additional advocate general Haryana, informed that as per the HC rules, the matter had to be placed before the first division bench (the court of Chief Justice) because it was a Public Interest Litigation. Since Chief Justice was on leave, the matter has been simply adjourned to be listed as per high court rules and order, he explained.

On Monday, a division bench headed by Justice G S Sandhawalia of the HC had taken Suo Motu cognizance of some media reports about the demolition of premises/buildings of those allegedly involved in Nuh violence.

02:04

Demolition drive against illegal construction to continue, says Nuh DC

Observing that apparently, without any demolition orders and notices, the law-and-order problem is being used as a ruse to bring down buildings without following the procedure established by law, the bench had also stayed the demolition drive.