- (1.) While considering the writ petition, the question made in the celebrated judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court delivered in the case reported in Shri Sachidanand Pandey and another vs. The State of West Bengal and others, 1987 AIR(SC) 1109 comes to mind and we cannot restrain ourselves from quoting para No. 2 of the same:- A hundred and thirty-two years ago, in 1854, 'the wise Indian Chief of Seattle replied to the offer of the great White Chief in Washington' to buy their land. The reply is profound. It is beautiful. It is timeless. It contains the wisdom of the ages. It is the first ever and the most understanding statement on environment. It is worth quoting. To abridge it or to quote extracts from it is to destroy its beauty. You cannot scratch a painting and not diminish its beauty. We will quote the whole of it. How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The Sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man. The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rockley crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man-all belong to the same family. So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and food our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours and you must henceforth give the kindness you would give any brother. We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of, land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's graves behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children. His father's grave and his children's birth right are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold lie sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand. There is no quite place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there in life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the small of the wind itself, cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath-the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives the last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadows flowers. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition. The White man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am a savage and I do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beats were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts soon happens to man. Ail things are connected. You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land. Tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth if sun mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know: The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know: All things are connected-like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life: he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover - our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creater, The white too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the wild buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many man and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival. The writ petition has been filed as a Public Interest Litigation by the residents of Kanotabag locality of Jaipur facing the same predicament like the "wise Indian Chief of Seattle" and have invoked the extra-ordinary jurisdiction of this Court as being interested in the preservation of open space/spaces meant for park/children park/children play ground in a duly sanctioned scheme. The petitioners have submitted that they being the residents of the locality are the persons who are intimately, vitally and developmentally affected by the action of the State which is bent upon to destroy the environment and deprive the residents of the area of the facilities reserved for the enjoyment and protection of health of public at large. It has been pleaded in the writ petition that in the city of Jaipur, there is a Kanotabag residential colony located on the Devi Path. In the approved plan of the said colony, in front of plot No. B-72 and to the east side of plot Nos. 74 and 75, facility area in the name of Children Park was reserved. This approved plan was sanctioned by the Urban Improvement Board in 1960. The Government in order to give undue advantage to respondent No. 4, by its order dated 6.8.2009 (Annx. 1) proceeded to release the plot from the nomenclature of convenience area and directed regularization thereof in favour of respondent No. 4. When the petitioners came to know about the said action of the Government, which as per the petitioners, is a JDA land meant for children park, the petitioners gave a notices to the Secretary, Urban Development Department and the Secretary, JDA, Jaipur as well as to the Chief Executive Officer, Municipal Corporation, Jaipur. The notice for demand of justice went unheard.
(2.) A First Information Report was also filed, being FIR No. 99/92 against the encroachment upon the said land.
(3.) This Court while considering the writ petition for admission, proceeded to issue notice to the respondents vide order dated 20.10.2009. Thereafter, Shri R.B. Mathur put in appearance on behalf of the State of Rajasthan through the Secretary, Urban Development Department, Jaipur as well as the Secretary, Jaipur Development Authority, Jaipur. The Municipal Corporation, Jaipur has been represented by Ms. Naina Saraf, Advocate and appearance on behalf of Mahendra Kumar Modi was put in by Shri M.M. Ranjan, Senior Advocate along with Shri H.S. Khandelwal.;