Patna, Jan. 4: Patna High Court today directed the state government to remove all the encroachments from all the six government medical colleges of the state within the next three months.

A division bench of Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Ravi Ranjan passed the direction on a petition filed by Vikas Chandra Guddu Baba seeking to remove squatters from the premises of six medical colleges.

Squatters have encroached upon a huge portion of lands at Patna Medical College and Hospital, Patna, Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, Patna, Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital, Darbhanga, JL Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Bhagalpur and Augrah Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Gaya.

The court also constituted a Special Task Force (STF) under the chairmanship of principal secretary health department to carry out execute removal plan in three months.

In the first month, STF would complete the process of demarcating the encroachments at all the six medical colleges and then they would start the process of clearing out the encroachers.

After clearing the encroachments, health department would complete the boundary walls of these colleges and subsequently, principal secretary would file the compliance reports vis-à-vis its orders.

Guddu Baba, the petitioner-in-person, contended that all the plots of the medical colleges have been encroached by the squatters and hawkers in connivance with the state government’s officials creating a complete mess on the premises which have caused major difficulties to the patients.

The property of the colleges are public property and such encroachments are a loot of public money, Baba submitted and added that the premises of the hospitals are not meant to run hotels and other general stores shops or private medicine shops as they create an unhygienic environment for patients.