‘Public way is not private territory’: Orissa High Court rejects shopkeepers’ plea to stop demolition for road widening

The order added that if unauthorised occupation of roads, drains, and other common spaces is permitted to continue for years, the very public record begins to be gaslit into irrelevance, and illegality is projected as normal, settled, and “accepted”.

Highlighting the significance of public property, the court said that the longer such an occupation persists, the stronger the false sense of entitlement becomes, and when the administration finally acts, a routine enforcement step risks turning into a law-and-order situation.

“That is how a public way slowly becomes private territory,” the order noted.

Findings

• Having dealt with eviction and demolition disputes on the judicial side often enough, this court has seen a recurring pattern.
• It is a governance necessity that protects shared civic infrastructure, maintains equality in enforcement, and preserves public confidence that the rule of law applies uniformly.
• It is settled that public streets and roads vest in the state as trustee for public use.
• The petitioners’ occupation of road land, impeding pedestrian and vehicular passage, cannot be deemed a protected right.
• Article 19(1)(e) (the right to reside and settle) certainly does not confer a license to trespass on public property.
• The structures in question have no sanction of law or valid title: if anything, the petitioners’ own accounts show only permissive occupation at best.
• They cannot appropriate public land by virtue of paying rent or building at their own expense.
• The petitioners also invoke Article 21, i.e., right to life and livelihood. This court recognises that the right to livelihood is an integral facet of the right to life.
• Yet the supreme court has made clear that even such fundamental rights cannot be used to validate unlawful conduct.
• Any deprivation of livelihood must follow just, fair, and lawful procedure. Here, by contrast, the petitioners never held a statutory lease or any registered agreement; their occupation is concededly illegal from the start.
• It must be kept in mind that while Article 21 of the Constitution encompasses the right to life with dignity and has been expansively interpreted to include the right to livelihood, it cannot be stretched to legitimise or immunise unlawful acts or continued occupation of public property without the authority of law.
• The constitutional guarantee of life and livelihood is not a charter for regularising encroachments or for insulating individuals from the legal consequences of acts undertaken in clear derogation of statutory norms governing public land.
• The Street Vendors Act, 2014, which protects licensed vendors, cannot bootstrap rights onto these illegal shop structures like the present ones.

Dicision

• The petitioners have failed to establish any enforceable legal right warranting interference under Article 226 of the Constitution.
• The challenge to the eviction and demolition action is accordingly rejected.
• The court directs the Balasore Municipality, in coordination with the District Administration, to form a monitoring committee to periodically monitor the encroachment situation in Balasore town and take appropriate measures to prevent the encroachers who have long possessing the government land by way of unauthorised occupation.

Background

• The dispute originated from the proposed eviction and demolition actions affecting 50 shps situated on land recorded in the name of PWD.
• The state authorities initiated these actions to facilitate the widening of the road stretch from Station Chhak to Fakir Mohan Golei and to construct essential drainage systems to mitigate waterlogging.
• The petitioners filed the plea to restrain the state from taking any coercive eviction or demolition action in respect of the market complexes, to enforce compliance with this court’s earlier order from June, 2025, and to ensure a fair, consultative process with due consideration to livelihood and rehabilitation before undertaking road-widening or drainage works.
• The Petitioners claim that there are 50+ shop rooms in the said complexes and that the shops have been in operation for over 30 years, with the petitioners being shop room owners/occupiers dependent on the shops for their livelihood.
• In the June 2025 order, the court directed the committee of local authorities to visit the spot, convene a meeting with shopkeepers, and ensure completion of the 400- meter road widening and related drainage work.
• The order also recorded that the committee should explore a fair/balanced solution, considering road widening, drainage construction, shopkeepers’ livelihood, and public convenience, and stated that no coercive action should be taken against shopkeepers till the Collector concludes.
• The Opposite parties plead that the shops are blatant encroachments on a public road project and that the State is duty-bound to remove any obstruction.