The Uttarakhand High Court on Thursday directed illegal occupants of government buildings in Tehri to vacate them.
Hearing a PIL, Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Alok Kumar Verma directed the state government to serve a notice to illegal occupants of such buildings asking them to vacate them in four weeks and also recover rent from them.
If the houses are not vacated even after this, the petitioner can approach the court again.
Sunil Prasad Bhatt, a resident of Tehri, had filed the PIL saying in 1976 houses were allotted to government employees and officers under the Pooled Housing Society in Tehri.
Since then, many employees living in these residences have been transferred, many have retired and many other employees have died. But the houses were not vacated, the petition said.
The houses which were vacant have been occupied by outsiders. Till now, the government has neither made the illegal occupants vacate the houses nor has collected rent from them, it said.
