“Selective outrage results in selective injustice.” This observation by Justice Atul Sreedharan is at the heart of a split verdict delivered on Monday (July 20) by the Allahabad High Court, concerning the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling on so-called “bulldozer justice”.
A division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan said that the state cannot demolish a house to punish the family for an alleged offence. However, the bench was split on whether the HC can go beyond the SC’s own directions and create additional safeguards against state action. The matter will now be referred to a third bench.
Facts of the case
The petition was filed by a man named Faimuddeen and his parents after his cousin, Aafan Khan, was booked under the BNS, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, the IT Act and the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act.
Right after the FIR was lodged, Aafan’s relatives received a municipal notice against their house, a lodge run by the family was allegedly sealed, and their saw mill was sealed.
The family argued these actions amounted to punishment by association. The State said the proceedings were independent of the criminal case and claimed that the lodge stood on Irrigation Department land related to earlier encroachment proceedings.
The house notice related to alleged planning law violations, and the saw mill action arose under the Forest Act. It also pointed out that Faimuddeen himself was later named in the criminal investigation.
What the SC said
The Allahabad HC ruling builds on the Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment in In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures. It held that governments cannot demolish property as punishment for an alleged crime, since deciding whether an accused is guilty is the domain of the court, not the executive.
It described a house as “not just a property” but something that “embodies the collective hopes of a family or individuals for stability, security, and a future” and held that the right to shelter forms part of Article 21 (the right to protection of life and personal liberty).
Legal framework for unauthorised construction
At the centre of the dispute is the Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973, which regulates planned urban development and empowers authorities to act against unauthorised constructions.
Under Section 27, demolitions of structures that are built in violation of laws are permitted only after issuing a notice, giving the owner 15 to 40 days to respond, and providing an opportunity to be heard.
The SC’s 2024 judgement added another safeguard by directing that no demolition be carried out for 15 days after a final order, to allow the affected persons time to seek legal remedies.
What the bench held
Despite writing separate opinions, the judges converged on several important points.
The bench held that municipal law cannot be used to punish people accused of crimes and reaffirmed the SC safeguards against punitive demolitions. It said that authorities cannot proceed against one allegedly illegal structure while ignoring identical violations nearby. Selective enforcement may indicate that the real objective is punishment rather than enforcement of planning laws, they said.
They also looked into the larger problem of unauthorised construction, observing that rapid urbanisation and migration have contributed to such structures but their existence cannot be justified. These realities increase the constitutional responsibility of development authorities, particularly where officials fail to act or collude with violators.
The bench also noted that constitutional courts are “constantly flooded with the writs, seeking protection from demolition,” often by petitioners who admit they have violated planning norms, but seek only enough time to find alternative shelter.
The court directed that whenever proceedings are initiated against unauthorised construction, disciplinary proceedings must also be opened against the officials responsible for allowing the violation and concluded within six months.
What Justice Sreedharan held
Delivering a scathing critique of what he described as the growing phenomenon of bulldozer justice, Justice Sreedharan said that demolition drives immediately following criminal accusations often appear designed not to enforce planning laws. Instead, they aimed “to satiate the perceived blood lust” of a society conditioned by television and social media to demand instant punishment.
The order noted that “The State is certain that that the society suffers from collective schadenfreude and shall applaud the State for dispensing vigilante style summary justice, without adhering to the procedure established by law and secures pleasure from the misfortune of the other person suffering loss. In such a situation, it is for the Constitution Courts to evolve a jurisprudence that is Constitutionally and legally valid.”
He also noted that illegal colonies continue to emerge due to rampant corruption. Their residents “are the les miserables of our people, poor, lower middle class and at some places, the middle class.”
Correcting planning violations, he said, cannot become “one sided action to correct the measures, by way of the retributive exercise of the executive discretion”.
Justice Sreedharan further suggested that to put a stop to corruption, the government should consider the death penalty for those convicted under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
He proposed safeguards beyond the SC’s own directions. Where demolition proceedings follow an FIR, a dwelling linked to the accused should ordinarily not be touched for two years, he held, since “the immediate action… is to satiate the presumable public anger immediately following the offence which would dissipate with the passage of time.” After two years, authorities remain free to act in accordance with municipal law and the Supreme Court’s safeguards.
He also proposed that anyone who has lived in an allegedly unauthorised house for three years or more should ordinarily receive a year’s advance notice before demolition proceedings begin, dispensable only for “compelling urgency” of a larger public need. He said that the State is often “particeps criminis” or an accomplice in the original construction through corruption.
Why Justice Nandan disagreed
Justice Nandan agreed with the underlying constitutional principle but not with the remedy. He held that the Constitution, through Article 226, allows HCs to enforce rights and ensure authorities follow the law, but it does not permit courts to suspend statutory powers for two years or introduce a one-year notice requirement that the legislature has not enacted.
Such a direction, he says, risks “travelling beyond the pleadings” of the case and amounts to “an instance of un-warranted judicial activism.”
While acknowledging that courts must step in where executive action is arbitrary, he said that the judiciary cannot enter “the realm of the legislature” by prescribing fixed timelines not available in the statutes.
Further, the two-year embargo may be misused with frivolous criminal cases filed to shield unauthorised constructions from municipal action.
He instead held that the proper course would be to ensure that the authorities strictly comply with the safeguards already laid down by the SC and the statutory procedure.
A bulldozer demolishes a house built on government land. (Express photo by Gurmeet Sodhi) 
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