The owners of caravans which have been cemented into the ground at Armier yesterday filed an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction to stop their eviction.

The 13 owners were served with an eviction order some days ago.

They claimed in their application that their rooms had been in place since the beginning of the 1980s and they could not remove them without demolishing them. These rooms, they said, were well equipped with beds, kitchens, water and electricity.

The owners noted that in April 2003, the government had entered into an agreement with Armier Development Ltd, binding itself that rooms which had been set up before 1992 would not be demolished.

The government had also promised that within six months of Mepa permits being issued, it would move a resolution in Parliament for the land on which there were these rooms to be passed on to ADL on temporary emphyteusis.

Mepa permits, they said, were still pending.

The owners said that the Commissioner for Lands had discriminated against them because there were many other rooms in the vicinity which had not been served with an eviction order.

This order, they said, was abusive and could not be issued.

The Lands Department will be filing a reply.