It is now an established fact that sealing in Delhi has very little to do with planning, unauthorised structures or even efficient retailing. Sealing turns out to have been nothing but a real estate scam, clearing the shops to pave the way for malls. How did neo-liberal capital get this scam going? Very simple. The investigations of lawyers campaigning for judicial accountability have revealed a shady tale of a direct link between the judge who passed the sealing order and his sons who were in the mall business. So “efficiency” in neo-liberal times has not changed much from the corrupt ways of its predecessor, the license Raj. Only this time, lakhs of livelihoods are being crushed and people displaced to line the pockets of a fraction.
This is no conspiracy theory but the murky case of former Chief Justice of India, YK Sabharwal, who put in place the sealing drive of properties in selected residential areas of Delhi, on the pretext that they were being illegally used for commercial purposes. In spite of the new master plan of Delhi 2021, which permitted mixed use and commercial activity in many residential areas, overzealous sealing continued relentlessly under the supervision of Chief Justice Sabharwal’s bench. But this was no ordinary enthusiasm to “clear the city”. Senior lawyers have revealed that Sabharwal’s two sons had entered into partnerships with big mall and commercial complex developers and become big sharks themselves, who stood waiting to swallow the smaller fish displaced by their father’s pronouncements.
Notably, in March 2005, Justice Sabharwal called for and dealt with the sealing of commercial property case, though it had not been assigned to him. Pending cases can be assigned only by the Chief Justice to various judges but Justice Sabharwal was not even a Chief Justice at that time. His sons operated their office from their father’s official residence till the day of their agreement with the large mall developer, Business Park Town Planners Ltd (BPTP). The sons also had several ‘land-developer’ companions who stood to gain from the orders. In fact, the sealing in Saket in South Delhi was so coordinated that even as an ‘illegal building” where fashion designers had rented shops was being demolished, Justice Sabharwal’s sons had along with their business friends started allotting space at a fashionable mall close to the area; the designers who were forced by the father’s verdict to clear out of their premises had no option but to buy space in the sons’ new mall.
But that is not all; even more skeletons have tumbled out of the Sabharwal cupboard. The newspaper Mid Day and the lawyers working for judicial accountability found that several plots of prime land in NOIDA, U.P were acquired by Sabharwal’s sons and relatives for throwaway prices when Justice Sabharwal was dealing with the Amar Singh tapes case. He had stayed the publication of the tapes. In the same period, his sons also acquired a massive plot of land and a house in posh Maharani Bagh in Delhi with money whose source is not declared; and in the sale deed the sons concealed their relation with their father.
The newspaper Mid Day in a series of articles in June 2007 had reported on the links between malls’ interests and the judicial verdict on sealing in Delhi. But this expose did not lead to the investigation into the judicial ethics of the sealing judgement being passed by a judge whose sons and their friends stood directly to benefit from it. Instead in a Kafkaesque way, it was the journalists who were on trial and the courtroom became the site to shoot the messengers. On 21 September 2007, the Delhi High Court sentenced 4 journalists of the newspaper to four months of jail on charges of ‘Contempt of Court’, without denying any of the points that were raised by them.
The case has duly attracted the consternation and anger of all those concerned about judicial accountability, democracy and land grabbing in the name of sealing in the city. And unlike Kafka’s trials, this will not be the last we hear of this murky case as journalists, legal experts and others promise to enter the streets and the campaign gains momentum.
