By The Wire Staff
New Delhi: Justice Atul Sreedharan of the Allahabad high court on Monday (July 20) came down heavily on bulldozer demolitions by the Uttar Pradesh government and said that the state is demolishing the houses of persons accused of an offence “to satiate the perceived blood lust of a society fed on a staple diet of bulldozer justice”, reported LiveLaw.
“The state is certain that the society suffers from collective schadenfreude and shall applaud the state for dispensing vigilante style summary justice, without adhering to the procedure established by law and secures pleasure from the misfortune of the other person suffering loss”, said Justice Sreedharan in a 51-page opinion authored by him which was part of a split verdict by a division bench also comprising Justice Siddharth Nandan.
Justice Sreedharan made the observations while hearing a writ petition wherein
The observations were made in a 51-page opinion by Justice Sreedharan in a split verdict in connection with a writ petition where the properties of a Hamirpur family were targeted by authorities shortly after their relative was booked under the BNS, IT Act, POCSO Act, and the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act.
Opens order with Bashir Badr couplet
Justice Sreedharan termed the practice of immediate demolition of an accused’s dwelling place as a “retributive exercise of executive discretion” and identified it as the ‘vilest’ species of the genus “colourable exercise of executive discretion”.
Opening his order with a couplet by Urdu poet Bashir Badr – “लोग टूट जाते एक घर बनाने में तुम तरस नहीं खाते बस्तियां जलाने में (People face ruination in just making a home, and you feel no remorse setting ablaze entire settlements)” – Justice Sreedharan highlighted the human need of shelter.
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