Supreme Court’s strong comments on bulldozing campaign
The Supreme Court has condemned the state government’s bulldozing operation in Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh. While hearing the case on Tuesday, the bench of CJI DY Chandrachud, JB Pardiwala and Manoj Mishra used very strong words. The court expressed dissatisfaction with the UP authorities for demolishing the complainant’s house with bulldozers due to road encroachment and said that you did not even give a chance to vacate the house, which was arbitrary. There is confusion. How can the house be demolished?
What did the Supreme Court say when it condemned the government?
- CGI said how can you start demolishing people’s houses like this? It’s chaos, breaking into someone’s house.
- This is completely arbitrary, where was the due process followed? We have an affidavit which states that no notice was given, you just went to the site and notified people. In such cases, we may be willing to provide punitive damages. Does this serve the purpose of justice?
- Justice JB Pardiwala said what have you done since 1960? What have you been doing for the past 50 years? Very arrogant, the state must respect the orders of the National Human Rights Commission and you sit quietly and protect the actions of officials.
- Justice JB Pardiwala told the Uttar Pradesh government lawyer that last night your officials demolished the yellow marked area to widen the road and the next morning you came with bulldozers. Like a takeover, you don’t bring a bulldozer to tear the house down or even give the family time to vacate the house. The expansion is just an excuse, it doesn’t seem to be the reason for the entire exercise.
- Apart from these comments, the Supreme Court also imposed a fine of Rs 25 lakh on the UP government.
What’s going on?
In 2019, the Supreme People’s Court is hearing a demolition case involving a road widening project. The thing is about Mahajaraganj. A writ petition was filed on behalf of Manoj Tibrewal Akash. The complainant argued that the demolition action was in response to a report made by the complainant regarding irregularities in the widening of the road. Any action involving private property must go through due legal process. The bench said he told the Uttar Pradesh government that you cannot do this by bringing bulldozers overnight and demolishing houses.
In the order, the CJI said that there is a need to investigate the matter. UP State did not produce any documents showing the original width of NH. Second, there is no physical documentation that any investigation was conducted to identify the infringement. Third, there is no evidence that the land was acquired for the project.
The court said the state government failed to reveal the exact extent of the encroachment. The width of the notified road and the extent of the applicant’s property within the notified width. In this case, why should houses outside the area of ​​alleged encroachment be demolished? The NHRC report stated that the damaged section was well over 3.75 meters.
The CJI said the demolition action was taken in the wake of the declaration. No notice was issued to the encroachers based on demarcation. It can be seen that this demolition is completely arbitrary and has no legal basis.
