In a landmark ruling, the apex court emphasizes the sanctity of shelter and due process, challenging the arbitrary actions of state authorities.
The order of the Supreme Court terming the arbitrary demolition of residential houses in Prayagraj “inhuman and illegal” and the direction it issued to the Prayagraj Development Authority to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to each of the six aggrieved house owners within six weeks have come as a welcome relief to the law-abiding people in this country.
The order has come a few weeks after the apex court laid down exhaustive guidelines for the demolition of houses in accordance with the rules and laws.
The question that called for the intervention of the apex court appears to be very simple: Can the executive determine whether a person is guilty of an offence and impose a punishment of its choice, far removed from any devised by the system this country has established for the dispensation of criminal justice? Several state governments, mostly run by the BJP and its allies, have believed they can, and have been doing so. They raze to ground residential or commercial structures belonging to people accused of crimes or to their relatives, showing no respect for the laws of the land. A first information report is more than enough for them to send bulldozers to the sites. What’s worse, the bulldozer raj so created has been presented as the best way to run the country by some.
But the Supreme Court has stepped in to remind the proponents of the new system that this country is run on constitutional principles. It has shattered the logic that the executive has all these powers and insisted that such thoughts violate the Constitution. The right to shelter is an integral part of Article 21 and that is a basic doctrine of the Constitution, the court has told the Prayagraj body.
The court has also gone on to express its shock on the manner in which “residences of the appellants have been high-handedly demolished”. There is something called right to shelter and due process of law, the court noted, in an oblique reference to the dictum that the government is run for the people, and arbitrary and vengeful acts on its part will not stand the scrutiny of law. The court also put down in detail how the authorities wanted to camouflage their inhumane acts through deceitful manoeuvres which can be interpreted as adherence to the mandate of the law. Notices were sent to the residents as per the law but without giving them time to prefer an appeal in a court of law, the apex court has said.
While it is questionable if the monetary compensation the Supreme Court has ordered to the victims years after they suffered the losses is adequate, that will act as a deterrent in the minds of those who plan more such actions in the future. It also opens a new window of hope for those who have to silently suffer the excesses of the men and women in power. And yet while the SC intervention is welcome, the people must remind themselves that the judiciary can only do so much when basic democratic ideals and human rights are trampled by the authorities as sanctioned by the nation’s polity. The malaise runs deeper, and the correction has to be carried out in matching depths.
