Land encroachment: High Court warns contempt action against officials

The High Court on Friday took officials to task for failing to come out with an action plan to clear the encroachment on government land.

During the hearing of the petition by Namma Bangalore Foundation, which referred to the report submitted by the Joint House Committee headed by A T Ramaswamy and the report of a task force committee headed by Balasubramanian for recovery of public land, the petitioner alleged that the government had not taken enough steps to recover the public land by clearing the encroachment.

Sajjan Poovaiah, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that the government was going slow on the matter.

“You come out with an action plan to clear encroachment or else the court will dictate terms. If you do not come out with the plans, officials concerned will be booked for the contempt of the Court,” a division bench comprising Chief Justice D H Waghela and Justice H G Ramesh said.

Advocate General Ravivarma Kumar submitted that the State government will work out on a time-bound plan to clear the encroachment. The matter was adjourned with a direction to inform the Court about the steps taken to clear encroachments.

Measuring radiation

The High Court has suggested the Union government to come out witha software which can measure radiation emitted by mobile towers.

“The software should be in such a manner that people should be able to measure level of radiation on their own,” Justice Ram Mohan Reddy observed orally while hearing a petition filed by Mohandas D Shetty seeking to prevent emission of radiation from mobile towers.

Test on Nityananda

The High Court has directed self-styled godman Nityananda to undergo medical test in connection with the allegation by his former devotee, Aarti Rao.

Justice A S Pacchapure directed Nityananda to appear before the committee of doctors at Victoria Hospital for test at 10 am on August 6. The court also directed Nityananda and his disciples to appear before Ramanagara court on August 18 in connection with the ongoing investigation.

Earlier, C V Nagesh, the counsel for Nityananda submitted that the latter cannot appear for the test as he was in  Hardwar and sought to postpone it.

However, the counsel for CBI said that it was not possible to postpone the test as the prosecution, following the  court orders, had constituted a committee of doctors for the test and sought custody of Nithyananda for a week. The court refused to grant custody, but directed the godman to appear before the doctors.