ABSTRACT
In 1994, an association of factory owners filed a petition in the High Court of Delhi to address the “great pollution problem resulting in dirt, filth and terrible sanitary conditions” in an industrial estate in South Delhi. Highlighting a litany of local environmental problems – including overflowing storm water drains, irregular electricity supply, congested streets, and open sewage – the petition made special mention of local slum settlements, asking “Whether it is not the statutory duty of the [Municipal] Corporation to destroy infectious huts and sheds in order to prevent the spread of any dangerous diseases.”1 With little mention of the other grievances raised in the original petition – namely, the Municipal Corporation’s failure to provide adequate municipal services – the High Court responded in 2002 by placing the responsibility for poor environmental conditions squarely on the “unhygienic mushrooming of slums in the urban areas causing a lot of damage to the health environment [sic] of the city as a whole.”2 As a result of “the problem of the slum,” the judgment went on to say, “citizens who have paid for the land and occupy adjacent areas [to the slums] are inconvenienced. An unhygienic condition is created causing pollution and ecological problems. It has resulted in almost collapse of Municipal services [sic].”3 The Court concluded with the following order: “Encroachers and squatters on public land should be removed expeditiously without any pre-requisite requirement of providing them alternative sites.”4
