Rajasthan moves to adopt Gujarat’s ‘disturbed areas’ Act: What is the controversial law?

What is the Gujarat Disturbed Areas Act?

Enacted in 1991 following a series of communal riots, the Gujarat Disturbed Areas Act was originally conceived to prevent “distress sales”, which occur when an individual is forced to sell their property at a value lower than the market rate due to fear of violence or intimidation – usually during communal unrest.

Under the Act, the state government can declare a specific area as “disturbed” due to a history of communal violence or mob unrest. Once an area is notified, the transfer of immovable property – houses, shops or land – in that zone requires the prior sanction of the district collector. Without their approval, any sale or transfer is considered void. The collector must hold a formal inquiry to ensure the sale is consensual and not driven by coercion.

While the stated objective of the Act is to protect vulnerable owners from being forced out, legal scholars have raised concerns that the Act effectively allows the state to police the demographic composition of neighbourhoods. By regulating who can buy property where, the state can prevent the organic mixing of communities, raising questions regarding Article 19(1)(e) of the Constitution, which guarantees every citizen the right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India and Article 15 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.

Pending legal challenges

The constitutional validity of the Act is currently under challenge before the Gujarat High Court. Two major petitions – one filed in January 2021 and another in August 2022 – are pending adjudication before Benches led by the Chief Justice of the High Court.

The petitioner in the former case, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind Gujarat – the Gujarat wing of the socio-religious organisation – sought in 2024 an interim stay on the operation of the Act, arguing that it was being used to harass citizens. However, the Gujarat High Court declined to grant an interim stay. This decision was appealed in the Supreme Court, which also declined to intervene at the interim stage, instead directing the petitioner to approach the High Court for an early hearing and disposal of the case.

But the petitioners did score a legal victory regarding the 2020 Amendment to the Act. The Gujarat government had amended the Act to expand its scope, introducing vague terms like “proper clustering” of persons of one community and empowering the collector to check if a transfer of property would disturb the “demographic equilibrium” or lead to “polarization”.

In January 2021, the Gujarat High Court stayed the operation of these specific amendments, restraining the state government from issuing notifications based on these new, broader powers. The interim stay has continued to date.

The Rajasthan government’s stated rationale of checking “improper clustering” mirrors the language of this stayed Gujarat amendment.

Free consent and fair market value

The Disturbed Areas Act states that the decision of the collector – and the state government in appeal – shall be final and conclusive and “shall not be questioned in any Court.” However, since High Courts are empowered under Article 226 of the Constitution to review administrative actions that violate fundamental rights or principles of natural justice, the Gujarat High Court has repeatedly been petitioned to scrutinise orders passed by collectors that went beyond the scope of the law.

Through a series of judgments, the High Court has established a clear doctrine: the collector’s power is limited strictly to verifying free consent and fair market value to validate a sale. They cannot block a transaction based on “law and order” fears or neighbours’ objections if the sale is genuine.

For instance, in a case decided by the court in March 2020, Hindu sellers had sold a shop to Muslim purchasers in Vadodara. The district collector denied permission, relying on a police report that cited potential law and order problems. Quashing the order, the High Court ruled that the police inquiry was “completely out of context with the provisions of the Disturbed Areas Act”. The court noted: “It is undisputed that the property in question was sold on a fair value and with free consent… When the scope of inquiry is that of free consent and fair value, the role of neighbours in the context of such sale becomes irrelevant.”

This was reiterated in another order in August 2023. Neighbours opposed to an interfaith property sale had filed an appeal against a single judge’s order allowing it. A Division Bench dismissed the appeal and imposed a cost of Rs 25,000 on the neighbours, holding that the deputy collector had “travelled beyond” his jurisdiction by entertaining objections based on community strength. The court affirmed that a neighbour has no legal standing to block a private contract between a willing buyer and a willing seller.

In October 2023, the High Court set aside a collector’s order rejecting the application for sale by a Hindu person to Muslim buyers. The collector rejection was based on a police report. The High Court stated that he had “overreached jurisdiction” by relying on extraneous grounds instead of focusing on the statutory requirement of free consent and fair value.

The court reiterated the core purpose of the act most recently in an order in September 2025, stating: “The object to get into such sale consideration is not to see whether it would create a law and order problem but to decide whether the sale is a distress sale so as to migrate from such an area by any manner getting away and selling his property for whatever consideration under fear.”