"This Is Lawlessness": Top Court Raps Uttar Pradesh For Illegal Demolition

Pulling up the Uttar Pradesh government for demolishing homes without due process, the Supreme Court today said homes cannot be razed overnight and families must be given time to vacate.

The bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud was hearing a 2020 suo motu case. The case was based on a letter by Manoj Tibrewal Aakash, whose house was demolished in 2019. The petitioner had said his home was razed without prior notice for alleged encroachment on a highway.

This also comes at a time when a separate bench of the top court is hiring petitions challenging "bulldozer justice" -- a term used to refer to demolishing properties belonging to people accused in criminal cases.

The Chief Justice said today that the demolition in this case was carried out without any notice. "It is clear (that) demolition was high-handed and without the authority of law. The petitioner states the demolition was only (carried out) because the petitioner had flagged irregularities in road construction in a newspaper report. Such action by the state cannot be countenanced and when dealing with private property, law has to be followed," he said.

The Uttar Pradesh government had said the petitioner had encroached on public land.

"You say that he was an encroacher of 3.7 sq m. We take it, we are not giving him a certificate for it, but how can you start demolishing people's houses like that? This is lawlessness... walking into somebody's house...," the Chief Justice said.

Justice Pardiwala, also part of the three-judge bench, said, "You can't come with bulldozers and demolish houses overnight. You don't give time to family to vacate. What about the household articles? There has to be due process followed."

The court noted that the case documents show that the petitioner was not issued a notice. "We have the affidavit that says no notice was issued, you only went to the site and informed the people through loudspeaker. You can't just with a beat of a drum tell people to vacate houses and demolish them. There has to be proper notice," said the bench, also comprising Justice Manoj Misra.

The court asked the Yogi Adityanth government to pay Rs 25 lakh as compensation. It also asked the state government to conduct an inquiry and take action against officers responsible for the illegal demolition.

The Chief Justice laid down guidelines the state government must follow in such cases: they must ascertain the width of the road, issue notice to remove encroachment, decide on any objections and give reasonable time to remove the encroachment.