CASE COMMENTARY:Procedure as Protection, Procedure as Pretext A Case Commentary on In re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 SCC 1,AUTHOR: ABARNA TIWARI
For some years, a pattern had become hard to write off as coincidence. A person is named in an FIR, often after communal tension, and within days a bulldozer arrives at their home or shop. The official line is always the same: routine action against unauthorised construction. But the timing, the choice of targets and the public celebration that followed pointed to something else, which was punishment without trial. In re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, the Supreme Court took this practice on directly. What makes the judgment notable is less any new doctrine than its form, which is a binding procedural code issued under Article 142 of the Constitution. My argument in this commentary is that the Court is right on principle and bold on remedy. But by layering procedure over a broad public-land exception, it has left the practice it targets partly intact.
CASE COMMENTARY
Procedure as Protection, Procedure as Pretext
A Case Commentary on In re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 SCC 1
I. Introduction
For some years, a pattern had become hard to write off as coincidence. A person is named in an FIR, often after communal tension, and within days a bulldozer arrives at their home or shop. The official line is always the same: routine action against unauthorised construction. But the timing, the choice of targets and the public celebration that followed pointed to something else, which was punishment without trial.
In re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, the Supreme Court took this practice on directly.[1] What makes the judgment notable is less any new doctrine than its form, which is a binding procedural code issued under Article 142 of the Constitution.[2] My argument in this commentary is that the Court is right on principle and bold on remedy. But by layering procedure over a broad public-land exception, it has left the practice it targets partly intact.
II. Facts and Procedural Background
The case came out of a batch of petitions, the most prominent being the one filed by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, challenging demolitions carried out in several States.[3] Among them were the 2022 Jahangirpuri demolitions in Delhi. The petitioners’ complaint was that the bulldozers were going after people accused of offences, that those affected came disproportionately from one community, and that they were given neither notice nor a hearing before their homes came down.
The States answered that the structures were unauthorised and that action followed municipal law, not the criminal allegations.
In September 2024, the Court stepped in and barred demolitions across the country without its leave. The one carve-out was for unauthorised structures on public roads, footpaths, railway lines and water bodies. The final judgment followed on 13 November 2024.
III. Issues
Two questions framed the decision.
1. Can the executive demolish a person’s property merely because they are accused, or even convicted, of an offence?
2. Where a structure really is unauthorised, what safeguards must come before demolition so that enforcement does not turn arbitrary?
IV. Holding and Reasoning
On the first question, the Court was firm. Neither accusation nor conviction justifies demolition, because punishment for an offence is set by law and imposed by courts. An executive that decides guilt and then punishes the accused by destroying their home has taken over the judicial function, which offends both the separation of powers and the rule of law. The Court also noted that bulldozing a family home punishes relatives who are accused of nothing, and that is something the Constitution cannot allow.[4]
Behind this sits the right to shelter under Article 21, which grew out of Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation[5] and Chameli Singh v. State of U.P.[6] Drawing on Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, the Court treated arbitrariness as the very opposite of the fairness that Article 21 demands.[7]
On the second question, the Court struck down no municipal statute. It laid down nationwide directions instead. In substance, they require:
· a show-cause notice of at least fifteen days, sent by registered post and affixed to the structure, stating the violation, the grounds and a date for a personal hearing;
· a digital portal for notices and orders, with intimation to the District Magistrate or Collector;
· a personal hearing with recorded minutes, followed by a reasoned final order;
· a further fifteen days after the final order for the owner to remove the structure or seek relief;
· videography of the demolition, an inspection report and a panchnama; and
· Officials who break these rules are held personally accountable, facing contempt proceedings, prosecution, and restitution paid out of their own pockets.
The directions have limits, though. They don’t apply to unauthorised structures on public land, such as roads, streets, footpaths, railway lines and water bodies, or to cases where a court has itself ordered the demolition.[8] 8
V. Analysis
A. The principle: no one is judge in their own cause
The strongest part of the judgment is its refusal to let the executive decide guilt. The proposition is an old one, but applying it here is not trivial. The Court treats a demolition triggered by an FIR as punishment in substance, whatever label the authority puts on it.
That fits the structural view of separation of powers that grew out of Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, under which no organ of the State may take over another’s core function.[9] Deciding guilt and handing down a sanction is judicial work through and through. The bulldozer practice collapses investigation, adjudication and punishment into one executive act, and the Court was right to see that no constitutional actor is allowed to do that.
B. The remedy: Article 142 as a procedural code
The choice of Article 142 is worth pausing on. The Court didn’t work within an existing statutory framework to require notice, a hearing, and recorded reasons. It wrote those requirements itself. That’s a practical move, since municipal laws vary from State to State, and a single code reaches every authority at once.
There’s a catch, though. The Court has previously said that Article 142 can’t be used to cut across express statutory provisions.[10] The directions survive that objection for two reasons: they add to municipal law instead of overriding it, and the principles of natural justice are already implied in those statutes to begin with.
Still, what the Court has produced is a code with no statutory home, one whose force depends on the judiciary continuing to watch over it. That’s a shaky foundation for a regime that is supposed to bind thousands of local bodies.
C. The weakness: procedure cannot detect pretext
The central difficulty is that the solution tests the form of enforcement, while the concern is motive. A municipal authority that wants to demolish an accused person’s home can now comply with every direction. It can serve notice, hold a hearing, record reasons, and wait out the thirty days. That sequence does give the owner time to approach a court, which is a real gain. But it does nothing to show that the authority acted for a legitimate reason, because motive does not appear on the face of a notice.
The doctrine that should fill this gap is Article 14’s bar on selective enforcement, traceable to State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar.[11] The judgment recognises the problem in spirit but gives it no procedural teeth. It does not require authorities to record why this structure, among many similar ones in the area, was picked for action. The judgment also doesn’t ask the State to explain itself when it breaks from its own enforcement record. If a building has stood unchallenged for years and is suddenly flattened, nobody in power has to say why. And without safeguards like that, a pretextual demolition can only be contested once the damage is done, when the home is already rubble and the family is already out on the street.
D. The exception: public land
The carve-out for roads, footpaths, railway lines and water bodies is the provision most likely to swallow the rule. Encroachment on public land is the commonest justification offered for demolitions, including the ones that prompted this case.
The Court’s reasoning is understandable. Public land cannot be held hostage to long proceedings, and Olga Tellis itself accepted the removal of pavement dwellers after reasonable notice. But Olga Tellis paired the power to remove with a duty of fair process, and the exception here drops that duty.[12] A judgment aimed at stopping demolition as punishment leaves outside its protection the very category that is easiest to relabel in order to disguise it. The exception would be safer if it demanded, at a minimum, a recorded finding that the structure lies on public land, along with some form of notice, however short.
E. Accountability after the fact
The directions lean on contempt, prosecution and restitution at the officials’ own expense. The deterrent logic is sound, but it works only once the home is already gone, and it expects the displaced owner to find the resources to take on the State. Personal compensation orders against officials are rare in practice. Whether the directions have changed behaviour on the ground is an empirical question.
VI. Conclusion
At its core, the judgment says something simple: you can’t knock down a person’s home to punish them. If the executive wants to act against someone’s property, it has to give notice, hold a hearing, and explain its reasons. What the court has really done is take a constitutional instinct and turn it into concrete rules, ones that any municipal authority can now be held to.
But there’s a catch. The ruling polices the process, when the real problem lies in the purpose. A demolition can follow every procedural step and still be a punishment in disguise. Because of the public-land exception and the lack of any selective-enforcement safeguard, the practice can survive in more procedural clothing. The next step, whether taken by the Court in later contempt proceedings or by legislatures, has to be making motive reviewable, which means requiring reasons for selection and not merely reasons for demolition. Until then, the bulldozer has been slowed, not stopped.
[1] In re Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 S.C.C. 1 (India).
[2] India Const. art. 142.
[3] Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind v. N. Delhi Mun. Corp., Writ Pet. (Civ.) No. 295 of 2022 (India)
[4] In re Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 S.C.C. 1 (India).
[5] Olga Tellis v. Bombay Mun. Corp., (1985) 3 S.C.C. 545 (India)
[6] Chameli Singh v. State of U.P., (1996) 2 S.C.C. 549 (India)
[7] Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, (1978) 1 S.C.C. 248 (India).
[8] In re Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 S.C.C. 1 (India).
[9] Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala, (1973) 4 S.C.C. 225 (India).
[10] Prem Chand Garg v. Excise Comm’r, A.I.R. 1963 S.C. 996 (India)
[11] State of West Bengal v. Anwar Ali Sarkar, A.I.R. 1952 S.C. 75 (India).
[12] Olga Tellis v. Bombay Mun. Corp., (1985) 3 S.C.C. 545 (India)