A Bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan held that State authorities cannot determine the guilt or innocence of an accused person and demolish the house of such person as punishment. The responsibility to determine the guilt of a person and punish him vests with the judiciary, the Bench said.

"If a property is demolished only because person is accused, it is wholly unconstitutional. Executive cannot determine who is guilty and cannot become a judge to decide if he is guilty or not and such an act will be transgressions of limits. The chilling side of bulldozer reminds that constitutional values and ethos do not allow such abuse of power," the Court said.

Pertinently, the Court held that such bulldozer action also cannot be against someone who is convicted of a crime too since such an action by the executive will be illegal will amount to taking the law into their own hands.

Further, demolishing the house of a person also affects the right to shelter under Article 21 of the Constitution and also becomes a collective punishment against the family members of such accused person, the Court noted.

"Construction of a house is an aspect of socio-economic aspirations and is just not a property but symbolizes years of struggle and it gives a sense of dignity and if this right is taken away, then the authority has to satisfy that such a measure was the only last resort available. The settled principle of criminal jurisprudence is that accused is innocent till proven guilty and if the structure is demolished, then it is collective punishment on all family members which cannot be allowed under the Constitution," the Court said.

Right to shelter and depriving innocents of such a right will be wholly unconstitutional, the Bench underlined.

"When a structure is suddenly selected for demolition while others remain, then mala fide is writ large and presumption could be drawn that action was not to bring down the illegal structure but to penalise the person before a court of law does so," Court noted.

Therefore, the Court held that public/ government officials responsible for such illegal and arbitrary actions should be made liable including by way of compensation.

Towards this end, the Court said that it has laid down binding guidelines to be followed by the State.

"Public officials who take law into their hands should be made accountable of high handedness. We have laid down binding guidelines which shall be followed by state officials in such cases. We have noted that even accused has certain right and safeguards, State and officials cannot take arbitrary action against accused or convicts without following due process of law, when an official is held liable for arbitrary action there has to be institutional mechanism to deal with it - one could be compensation. Such officials cannot be spared for mala fide exercise of power," the judgment said.

The Bench held that while the State has the obligation to maintain law and order and take action against law breakers, there cannot be an arbitrary exercise of such power by the State and property of an individual cannot be arbitrarily taken away from him.

"When citizen has broken the law, the court has cast obligation upon State to maintain law and order and protect them from unlawful action. Failure to adhere to this can erode public confidence and can give way to lawlessness. However, protecting individual liberty is important for upholding constitutional democracy. We have held that arbitrary exercise of state power needs to be reigned in so that individuals know that their property shall not be taken away arbitrarily from them," the Court said.

The Court also made it clear that the executive cannot replace the judiciary when it comes to deciding the legality or illegality of a property. Hence, it will be unjust on the part of government authorities to demolish properties of a person accused of crime without following due process of law

"State cannot replace judiciary in performing core functions and will be wholly unjust if State demolishes such properties without following due process of law. If the executive in an arbitrary manner demolishes property of a person only on the basis that person is accused of crime it violates separation of powers," the Bench ruled.

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