SC mandates legal process for UP demolitions, seeks government response

On a Thursday morning in June, India's Supreme Court stepped into a widening dispute over how the Uttar Pradesh government was tearing down buildings. The court did not stop the demolitions outright—it said it had no power to do that—but it issued a clear instruction: follow the law. The bench of justices AS Bopanna and Vikram Nath asked the state government to file a written response within three days and scheduled another hearing for the following week.

The case had been brought by Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, a Muslim organization, which argued that the state was using demolition as punishment. The petitioners said the government was targeting properties belonging to people accused of crimes—sometimes homes that had stood for more than two decades, sometimes houses owned not by the accused but by their elderly parents. This was not demolition for urban planning or safety. This was demolition as extrajudicial retribution, they argued, a way to punish people outside the courtroom.

During the half-hour hearing, the court's language was measured but firm. "When someone has a grievance they have a right to have it addressed," the justices said. "Such demolitions can only happen as per Act." They noted that the government would have time to present its case, but in the meantime, the court had a duty to ensure the safety of the people whose homes were at stake. "If this court doesn't come to rescue, that wouldn't be proper," the bench observed.

The petitioner's senior counsel, CU Singh, laid out what the law actually required. Under Section 27 of the Uttar Pradesh Municipality Act, authorities must issue notice before demolishing any structure. The law gives property owners at least fifteen days to respond, followed by a mandatory forty-day waiting period. During that window, owners can appeal to the municipal chairman. "Ordinarily, notices are given and you don't just come knocking on doors with a bulldozer," Singh told the court. Yet that, he said, was exactly what was happening across the state. Homes standing for two decades were being razed without proper procedure, sometimes targeting relatives of the accused rather than the accused themselves.

The state's legal team, led by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Harish Salve, pushed back. They argued that due process had been followed in the cases cited—Prayagraj, Kanpur, and others. In Prayagraj, they said, notice was issued in May, well before any riot occurred, and the demolition order came on May 25. In Kanpur, a show-cause notice was issued on August 17, 2020, followed by two additional notices, property sealing, and FIR filings. The state contended that it was not targeting any particular community; structures were removed based on legality, not on who owned them. "Due procedures were followed," the Solicitor General insisted.

But the court was not persuaded by the state's framing. The justices told the government not to treat the proceedings as adversarial based on who had filed the petition. The question was not about politics or which organization brought the case. The question was whether the law was being followed. The court asked the state to place its evidence on affidavit—to make a formal, sworn statement about the procedures it had actually followed in each case. Salve asked for three days to do so.

The organization Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind had also asked the court to halt all planned demolitions in Kanpur District while the case was pending. The court did not grant that request, but it made clear that the state could not simply proceed as it had been. The next hearing would come within a week. By then, the government would have to explain itself in writing, and the court would have to decide what "following the law" actually meant in a state where bulldozers had become a tool of governance.