SRINAGAR: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the Chandigarh administration to consider framing a rehabilitation policy for migrant labourers from Jammu and Kashmir, who have been residing in government quarters in Sector 29 for nearly four decades. While upholding their eviction, the court termed their immediate removal as “unjust and harsh”, granting them time till March 31, 2026, to vacate the premises.
A division bench comprising Justice Anupinder Singh Grewal and Justice Deepak Manchanda passed the order while disposing of a batch of petitions filed by Kashmiri migrant labourers who have been living in the quarters since the early 1980s. The petitioners had challenged the administration’s eviction drive and sought rehabilitation before being displaced.
According to a report in Hindustan Times, the high court upheld the Chandigarh administration’s decision to evict the residents, holding that they had “no legal right” to retain possession of the government quarters. The bench noted that eviction orders passed in 2012 had attained finality and could not be reopened.
However, acknowledging that the families have lived in the Sector 29 quarters for approximately 37 years, the court granted them a “reasonable time” to find alternative accommodation. “It would be unjust and harsh to direct their immediate eviction,” the bench said, as reported by The Tribune.
The petitions, filed between 2019 and 2024, were moved by migrant labourers who claimed that they had been staying in the government quarters for the past three and a half decades. They alleged that while eviction notices were issued in January 2019, their representations seeking rehabilitation had gone unanswered by the administration.
The counsel for the petitioners argued that the eviction proceedings were initiated without following due process and that the administration should first formulate a rehabilitation plan. “The petitioners ought not to be evicted without following due procedure of law,” their counsel submitted, according to The Tribune.
The Chandigarh administration, along with the Union of India, countered that the accommodation was granted only on a temporary basis in 1983–84, after the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir requested temporary shelter for labourers migrating during the harsh winter months to earn their livelihood. Sixty residential quarters were then allotted on the condition that they would be vacated after the season.
Over the years, however, many of these families continued to occupy the government quarters. The administration later initiated proceedings under the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971, leading to an eviction order on June 21, 2012. The order was upheld by the high court at the time.
“It is manifest that the order evicting the residents had been upheld by this court, and it had attained finality in the year 2012. Therefore, the same issue cannot be reopened and re-agitated in the instant petitions,” the bench observed.
Still, the court made it clear that humanitarian considerations warranted a softer timeline. “We deem it appropriate to grant them time till March 31, 2026, to vacate the quarters. We also direct the respondents to consider rehabilitation of the petitioners as they have been residing in Chandigarh for almost four decades and, if necessary, consider framing a policy in that regard,” the court said, as cited by The Tribune.
The court’s order marks the culmination of a long legal and humanitarian dispute involving Kashmiri migrant labourers who had built their lives in Chandigarh over generations. For now, they have secured a temporary reprieve — and a faint promise of policy-based rehabilitation — from the city they have called home for nearly forty years.
