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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently ordered the state authorities in the Firozabad district to ensure the removal of all constructions, be it public toilets, boundary walls or any other construction standing on the residential plots of two men, and deliver vacant possession of the same to them. 

The bench of Justice JJ Munir further ordered the authorities to pay Rs 2 lakhs each to the two petitioners.

The order was passed in a writ petition seeking restoration of the petitioners' possession on two plots situate at Village Alinagar Kenjra, Tehsil Sadar, District Firozabad.

The case of the petitioners was that they were lawful allottees of the plots vide an awasiya patta dated 04.02.1976 granted in favour of the petitioners' predecessors-in-interest, but they were illegally deprived of their roof and shelter by the respondents.

They also apprised the court of all the proceedings initiated by them seeking the restoration of their possession of the said plots which were taken away by the respondents.

In 1983, the validity of the awasiya patta granted in favour of the petitioners' predecessors as well as the other 136 similarly circumstanced patta holders was questioned through proceedings initiated under Rule 115P of the Rules of 1952 at the instance of the State which was challenged by the petitioners' predecessors-in-interest multiple times. 

The petitioners informed the court that the constructions raised over the petitioners' plots by their predecessors had been demolished by the respondent-Authorities, acting in connivance with the Pradhan, Gram Panchayat, Alinagar Kenjra, utilizing brute force of the State available at their command, in utter derogation of the petitioners' rights.

The petitioners further alleged that their dispossession was done without following the due process of law and in violation of their crystallized rights, which is a blatant transgression of their fundamental rights.

"We think that it is undoubtedly so," the high court held. 

Court held the respondents' action "a brazen abuse of authority by the respondents in derogation of the petitioners' right not only under Article 300-A of the Constitution, but also their Right to Shelter protected under Article 19(1)(e) and 21 of the Constitution".

"To take away a man's roof and shelter otherwise than by procedure established by law is an act that cannot be lightly noticed by this Court and passed over," said the court.

Court said that the Right to Shelter, as a facet of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Articles 19(1)(e) and 21 of the Constitution, has been acknowledged.

Court highlighted that the respondents had acknowledge that they had constructed public toilets over a part of the land in dispute, to which they had no right, whatsoever, under the law and they had also acknowledged that the petitioners’ right under the awasiya patta was a subsisting right.

Therefore, court held that in such circumstances, the petitioners were entitled to restoration of their residential plots, after immediate demolition of the public toilets and boundary walls put up on their land by the Gram Sabha.

"They are also entitled to award of exemplary costs to serve as recompense for the brazen violation of their rights that we have found," the court opined.