‘Very sorry state of affairs’: Allahabad High Court imposes Rs 20 lakh cost on state for ‘illegal’ demolition of property

Calling it a “very sorry state of affairs”, the Allahabad High Court has saddled the Rae Bareli district authority with Rs 20 lakh costs for illegally demolishing a property without giving hearing opportunity to the petitioner.

Justice Alok Mathur was dealing with a plea against the order passed by Sub Divisional Magistrate, Raebareli, unilaterally correcting the revenue records and deleting the name of the petitioner from the records.

Terming it a serious infringement of the right to property, the court ordered restoration of the possession of the vacant land to the petitioner and ordered enquiry against the erring officials.

“Neither was any notice given to the petitioner nor any opportunity of hearing was given to him, and an order under Section 38 was passed behind the back of the petitioner, and immediately thereafter, demolition was carried out without giving him any opportunity to file appeal against the said order,” the court noted.

The court remarked that the facts of the case demonstrated a very sorry state of affairs about the proceedings undertaken by the revenue authorities in dealing with the exercise of statutory power to determine the right and title of the property.

The court observed that the conduct of the Tehsil/Sub Divisional Magistrate, indicated that it was oblivious of the rights and duties conferred on them by the law and ignorant of direction of various courts.

The court further added that the State must take immediate steps to adequately train the revenue officials as they were dealing with serious property rights of the entire population living in rural Uttar Pradesh, who are entitled to speedy and quality dispensation of justice.

A suo moto proceedings was initiated for correction of revenue records which was unilaterally corrected without giving any notice or opportunity of hearing to the petitioner who is the recorded tenure holder of the said land. The land was declared as gram sabha land.

Subsequently a revenue team was constituted to demolish the structure and the proceedings were executed in March.

The counsel for the petitioner informed the court that with regard to the affected property a suit for declaration was filed and the suit was decreed in favour of the predecessor in interest of the petitioner in 1975. Subsequently, the name of the predecessor in interest of the petitioner was recorded in the revenue records.

The counsel for the petitioner submitted that despite the petitioner having established his rights to the property, the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Tehsil Sadar, Raebareli, had initiated proceedings without issuing any notice and deleted the name of the petitioner from the revenue records.

It was further argued that there was no semblance of following any procedure and the officials had acted illegally by firstly suo moto correcting the revenue records, deleting the name of the petitioner from the revenue records, and subsequently proceeding to demolish the structure.

The court noted that the right to property is a constitutional right provided for in Article 300A of the Constitution of India.

The court further noted that under the constitutional framework, there is no scope for arbitrariness by officials, and that no one can be punished or made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land.

“It is only the courts which are independent adjudicators of the rights of the parties, and under the constitutional framework, it is only they which can impose punishment,” the court said.

The Court held that the proceedings for correction of records was illegal and unfair as the petitioner was not given a chance to be heard.

The court further noted that the demolition was also illegal as the officials failed to follow the required legal procedures and ignored the Supreme Court’s 2024 guidelines regarding the demolition of structures.

“Mere setting aside of the impugned order will not be sufficient to render complete justice to the petitioner whose property has been illegally demolished by the State authorities. For the aforesaid action, adequate cost has to be imposed, taking into account the conduct of the state officials and the damage caused to the citizen whose property has been subjected to illegal demolition,” the court said while granting a compensation of Rs 20 lakhs to the petitioner.