It's a problem many landlords in India face: how to get long-staying tenants to vacate.
Only this time, it is the Indian government trying to evict former ministers and other VIPs who are refusing to leave their sprawling homes that were allocated as a perk when they were in office.
On Monday, the government told the Supreme Court it is facing a major problem in repossessing state-owned homes. It says nearly 500 houses are being occupied illegally by former ministers or their relatives, former police officers and other dignitaries. The government had submitted the names of 465 offenders earlier, and 32 more names were added on Monday.
The multiple bedroom, colonial-era homes with wooded lawns in central New Delhi are prized because of their location, prestigious addresses and assured water and electricity supply, something of a luxury in the capital known for its creaking infrastructure.
Among the prominent unwanted guests of the government is K. Gill, a former police chief of Punjab credited with breaking the back of a Sikh separatist insurgency in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Another is Bihar State governor Buta Singh, a former minister who retains the government house in New Delhi although he lives in a palatial governor's mansion in Bihar's capital, Patna. He has refused to leave even though the Supreme Court had recommended in a ruling on Oct. 24 that Singh should be "thrown out."
The government has not said why it can't forcibly remove the occupants, but the reasons are many. Authorities are reluctant to embarrass well known personalities; many such as Singh are from the ruling party; some might become ministers again and penalize bureaucrats who sign the eviction orders, and some like Gill enjoy popular support and public sympathy.
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