“Justice through bulldozers is unknown to any civilized system of jurisprudence” and “is simply unacceptable under the rule of law”, the Supreme Court has said.
A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said that “if it were to be permitted, the constitutional recognition of the right to property under Article 300A would be reduced to a dead letter.”
The court said this in its November 6 order by which it directed the Uttar Pradesh government to pay Rs 25 lakh as compensation to a man whose house was demolished for a road-widening project in 2019 without giving him due notice.
The order, made available Saturday, said that the petitioner alleged that the demolition was “reprisal” for a newspaper report which contained allegations of wrongdoing in relation to the construction of the road in question. “We need not engage with this aspect, save and except to the extent that it supplies the background to the grievance of the petitioner,” the court said.
Underlining that there was no room for such “high-handed and unilateral action,” by the state government, the court raised serious concerns. “Justice through bulldozers is unknown to any civilized system of jurisprudence. There is a grave danger that if high-handed and unlawful behaviour is permitted by any wing or officer of the state, demolition of citizens’ properties will take place as a selective reprisal for extraneous reasons,” the court said.
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here.
