Razing homes and shops with bulldozers in the name of illegal construction and development had become popular in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states. The practice was headed by Uttar Pradesh where bulldozers flattened homes of those accused of crime; in between December 2023 and June 19 this year, 1,169 houses and 101 commercial establishments were flattened in Lucknow’s Akbernagar. This was ostensibly because the government wished to develop this area into an ecotourism hub. The government claimed that the structures on the river were illegal, built by land mafias and infiltrators, although residents have lived there for decades. On September 17, upon hearing pleas alleging that the property of accused people was being illegally demolished in several states, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court ruled that no demolition will take place without the court’s permission before October 1. The only exceptions would be illegal structures in public areas, such as roads, footpaths, railway lines and water bodies. These could be demolished even if they were religious edifices. On September 2, the court had said that alleged crime could not be a reason for demolishing property. This was also the ruling of a coordinate bench on September 12.

In effect, the ruse to flatten homes to be tough on crime in certain states has been strongly reje­c­ted by the Supreme Court. Here it is demolition that is illegal; even a convict cannot have his fami­ly home destroyed by this ‘bulldozer justice’. A single such illegal demolition is against the ethos of the Constitution, according to the apex court. The allegation that the demolitions target the homes of marginalised people or those belonging to a particular religion comes from multiple sources. The Supreme Court took ex­ception to the solicitor-general’s submission that a ‘narrative’ was being built around the demolitions; the judges were also severely critical of the ‘grandstanding’ that said demolitions would continue even after the court’s September 2 ruling. The Supreme Court will give directives as firm as the Vishakha guidelines as to the rules to be followed in demolition. ‘Bulldozer justice’ had be­gun in 2017 with Yogi Adityanath’s practice of destroying homes or threatening to do so. In one count, 4,46,254 structures have been razed by the states. After the Supreme Court’s ruling, intolerance of crime will no longer work as an excuse for demolition.