Mumbai, Jan 6: Last Saturday the district authorities of the Chhattisgarh government demolished an allegedly ‘illegal’ property belonging to a prime accused Suresh Chandrakar, a day after police discovered the body of a 32-year-old freelance journalist and distant relative Mukesh Chandrakar, in a septic tank.
Around the same time, authorities in Gujarat’s Jamnagar also razed four houses built on about 2,500 feet of municipal land in the Ghanchi Khadki area in Jamnagar by one Hussain Gulmamad Sheikh, accused in a gangrape case. It seems the authorities discovered that the man had no permissions for building or for proof of land ownership.
On Dec 21, 2024, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) demolished three houses belonging to Sameer Sheikh, Aftak Sheikh, Fazal Sheikh, and Mahfuz alias Mehkuzmian Malik, and two more in Garib Nagar in Rakhial, after seeing a video of a local being attacked allegedly by the above-mentioned. Swords and knives were said to be used and police officers who tried to intervene were forced to retreat. The houses in Akbarnagar were built on a municipal plot near the Bapunagar SP office. Once again, there were no documents granting perissions for building.
Perhaps most significantly in recent times, MP Zia-ur-Rahman Barq of the Samajwadi party also faced bulldozer action on his under-construction house and others around it yesterday in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.
Barq was named in an FIR filed after violence flared up on Nov 24 in Sambhal., about 20 kn south west of Miradabad in UP. He was accused of instigating riots through provocative speech that erupted during a court-ordered survey of Shahi Jama Masjid by the Archeology Survey of India (ASI) on November 19. The riots cost five people their lives and many were injured.
Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) Vandana Mishra clarified that a notice was sent to MP Barq on Dec 5 for constructing a house in a regulated area, seeking his reply by Dec 12, which the authorities said was not received.
By then, however, the Supreme Court on Nov 13 imposed a pan-India ban on ‘bulldozer justice’ stating that demotion of property without due process based on alleged criminal activity is unconstitutional.
It laid down guidelines to curb illegal demolitions which were warmly welcomed and celebrated on social media, as well as by news organizations and civil society. Some even used the couplet cited by Justice B R Gavai in his 95-page judgment as the opening remark. Apna ghar ho, apna aangan ho, is khawab mein har koi jeeta hai; Insaan ke dil ki ye chahat hai ki ek ghar ka sapna kabhi naa choote’ (To have one’s own home, one’s courtyard – this dream lives in every heart. It’s a longing that never fades, to never lose the dream of a home). This was a great victory against the arbitrary nature of “bulldozer justice”, it was declared.
A closer reading of the order and its application to what is happening now reveals a different picture.
The majority of the properties that are bulldozed are regarded as ‘illegal’ in the first place. The 95-page judgment by the apex court on Page 87 mentions that the directions issued by the courts (regarding bulldozing of properties of merely accused in a crime)will not be applicable if there is an unauthorized structure in any public place or water bodies and also in cases where the lower courts have already ordered the demolition of the structure.
Contrary to the media portrayal of the order as a savior for those facing criminal cases but not yet convicted, it would seem that the Supreme Court has given a green signal to the governments to go ahead, provided it can show the building or consttuction as illegal.
In fact, the apex court seems to have dictated how things could be fast-tracked by having digital acknowledgments over emails. (page 87-95) This could be seen as opening a loophole for the state authorities, this time legally, against marginalized communities, political opponents, alleged criminals, or dissenters making the government uncomfortable with their statements.
Senior journalist Zafar Ahmad Khan’s house was bulldozed on March 3, 2024, in Uttar Pradesh. He was not even living in the premises, having rented it out. Khan was alleged to have close connections with the late gangster Atiq Ahmed and provided shelter to one of his shooters.
On April 24, around 70 houses of Pakistani Hindu migrants were demolished by the Jodhpur district administration, citing encroachment. Later on May 16, the Jaisalmer district administration demolished 28 housing structures belonging to the migrants in Amarsagar gram panchayat of the city following complaints by the sarpanch again citing they allegedly encroached the land.
Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) demolished alleged illegal portions of Kangana Ranaut’s bungalow in Bandra after she got into a scuffle with the ruling government.
This same pattern of harassment is visible even after the Supreme Court ordered a stop to “bulldozer justice,”so things haven’t changed. Instead, the court’s rules, which seemed meant to protect people, have given the government a way to continue tearing down properties under the guise of addressing unauthorized structures, further weaponizing it ‘legally’.
