Five Surat Municipal Corporation engineers were suspended in Surat on Wednesday after the Gujarat High Court pulled up the authorities for the controversial demolition of over 100 houses in the city’s Nasirnagar area without any formal orders.Five civic engineers suspended after Gujarat High Court questioned how over 100 houses in Surat’s Nasirnagar were demolished without notices.The demolition, carried out over three days from May 30 to June 1, razed more than 100 houses in Nasirnagar, a slum settlement in Surat’s Ved Darwaja area. When questions were initially raised about the demolition, no government agency came forward to claim responsibility.Twenty-six residents approached the high court against the demolitions carried out without notice to the people. During the hearing on June 29, justice Nikhil Kariel said that police protection had been sought only for land demarcation and that the police personnel present at the site should have intervened when the agency began demolishing houses.The bench also questioned the role of senior police officers in the entire episode and issued a notice to builder Sanjay Lakhani over allegations that the demolition was carried out to benefit a project linked to him.The five municipal officials who have been suspended are executive engineer Sujalkumar Prajapati, executive engineer JR Jivanramjiwala, deputy engineer Arpit Parmar, assistant engineer Mohsin Gadhiya, and junior engineer Nareshkumar Galchar, all attached to the corporation’s civil wing, according to an official SMC statement.According to the SMC, the officials were suspended based on the findings of a fact-finding committee constituted to examine the demolition. The corporation said the suspension was necessary to ensure that the departmental inquiry was conducted in a fair and impartial manner.In a written reply submitted to the Gujarat High Court, municipal commissioner M. Nagarajan stated that the SMC had not issued any demolition orders.Nagarajan said the officials were present at the site only for land demarcation related to a long-pending dispute on privately owned land. SMC standing committee chairman Rajan Patel also took a similar position during proceedings, saying police deployment was requested solely for the demarcation exercise.The matter is scheduled to be heard again by the Gujarat High Court on July 2, when the corporation is expected to present the findings of its fact-finding committee.