Supreme Court sets two week deadline for Jaipur tribunal appeals

The Supreme Court has given the Jaipur Development Appellate Tribunal a strict fortnight to clear its full backlog of appeals over alleged illegal construction and encroachment, according to Deccan Herald, and made the tribunal's presiding officer personally answerable for meeting that deadline. The instruction, issued on 5 August, responds to complaints that stay orders from the tribunal had stalled enforcement action pursued by the Jaipur Development Authority. The civic body contends that plots reserved for farming or open space were built over, and that a resort and several commercial complexes went up without the necessary clearances. Officials had begun tearing down and sealing some of these structures, only for the people affected to win temporary protection from the same tribunal, prompting the top court's push for faster hearings. Whether each structure is genuinely unauthorised, and which permissions were actually issued, is still for the tribunal to work out.