Civil vigilantism saves civic amenity site in JP Nagar from land sharks

 A civic amenity site — measuring 153 ft x 53 ft, which would have fallen prey to land sharks, was saved thanks to civilian vigilantism.

However, such has been the City corporation’s indifference that, despite giving an undertaking to the Karnataka High Court that the site would be fenced, the BBMP is yet to do so.

Hearing a public interest litigation by Nanjundeshwara HSG Society Layout Residents’ Welfare Association, the Division Bench of the then acting Chief Justice K Sridhar Rao and Justice S Abdul Nazeer, had passed an order stating that the petitioners were right in that the BBMP had not fenced the entire park as it ought to have done.  
The judges declared the writ petition closed after the counsel for BBMP submitted that the open space appeared as a road in the picture annexed with the petition was a park and the Palike would not use it as a road and undertook to fence the entire area.

When contacted, Bommanahalli Zonal Commissioner H Jannappa said he was not aware of the High Court order. “Since you have brought the matter to my notice, I will go through the order and implement it,” he said.

However, the genesis of the fight goes to Girish Ganguly, a resident of BDA approved Nanjundeshwara HSG Society Layout in JP Nagar V Phase, who noticed that the civic amenity site of his locality, reserved for a park, was being conveniently turned into a road to facilitate a builder.

While the site was never fenced by BBMP despite several representations by the Residents’ Welfare Association, much to their chagrin, they noticed the width of the CA site reduced to half its actual size after BBMP suddenly fenced it.

The demarcation of the boundary turned beneficial to Sumukha Infra, coming up with a multi-storey residential project next to HSG Society Layout.

Despite knocking on the doors of the local BBMP office, or the BDA, the authorities remained indifferent to their plea. As a final resort, when they approached the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF), the inspector who visited the site admonished them for lodging a complaint against the builder without verifying facts.  
Left with no option, the residents had to seek the intervention of the High Court through a public interest iitigation.