Bulldozer Demolition After FIR Is "Retributive Executive Discretion" — Allahabad HC Proposes 2-Year Embargo on Demolition Full Case Analysis
EduLaw EditorialLandmark JudgementsIn a landmark opinion, Justice Atul Sreedharan of the Allahabad High Court coined the constitutional concept of "Retributive Exercise of Executive Discretion" calling it the "vilest specie" of colourable exercise of power and proposed a two-year moratorium on demolitions following FIR registration. Title: Bulldozer Justice as "Retributive Executive Discretion" — Allahabad High Court's Landmark Proposal for a Two-Year Demolition Embargo After FIR Registration Case Name: Faimuddeen and 2 Others v. State of U.P. and 7 Others Case Number: Writ - C No. 2229 of 2026 Court: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad Judges: Hon'ble Justice Atul Sreedharan and Hon'ble Justice Siddharth Nandan Judgment Date: July 20, 2026 Citation: 2026 AHC (Writ) — Split Verdict (Awaiting Third Judge Reference) ABSTRACT The practice of demolishing residential properties of persons accused of criminal offences — colloquially termed "bulldozer justice" — has emerged as one of the most contentious intersections of executive power and fundamental rights in contemporary Indian jurisprudence. In Faimuddeen and 2 Others v. State of U.P. and 7 Others, Writ-C No. 2229 of 2026, Justice Atul Sreedharan of the Allahabad High Court delivered a sweeping opinion proposing radical safeguards against punitive demolitions. The Court coined a new constitutional concept — "Retributive Exercise of Executive Discretion" — describing it as the vilest specie of colourable exercise of executive power. Justice Sreedharan proposed that no dwelling belonging to a person accused of an offence should ordinarily be demolished for two years from the date of FIR registration, reasoning that the immediate public anger generated by an alleged offence subsides with time, thereby reducing the possibility of executive action being influenced by mob sentiment. The opinion also proposed a mandatory one-year notice period before initiating demolition proceedings against structures occupied for more than three years, simultaneous disciplinary proceedings against officials whose connivance enabled illegal constructions, and a prohibition on selective enforcement against individual properties while ignoring similar violations in the vicinity. However, Justice Siddharth Nandan delivered a separate opinion disagreeing with these additional safeguards, resulting in a split verdict that has been referred to a third judge for resolution. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction and Factual Background Issues Framed by the Court The Doctrine of Retributive Exercise of Executive Discretion Right to Shelter Under Article 21 — Judicial Precedents Relied Upon The Two-Year Demolition Embargo and Other Proposed Safeguards The Split Verdict — Justice Siddharth Nandan's Disagreement Case Laws Cited and Statutory Framework Significance, Implications, and Conclusion 1. INTRODUCTION AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND The present case originated from a writ petition filed by a family residing in Ward No. 11, Bharua Sumerpur, District Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh. The petitioners — a son, father, and mother — alleged that their residential house, a commercial establishment known as "Indian Lodge," and a sawmill were targeted by State authorities immediately after an FIR (Crime No. 20/2026) was registered against their relative, one Aafan Khan. The FIR was lodged under Sections 64(1), 62/351(3), and 61(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) , Section 67(A) of the Information Technology Act , Sections 3 and 4 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act , and Sections 3 and 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act . Critically, the petitioners themselves were not initially named as accused in the FIR, though Petitioner No. 1 was subsequently arraigned during the pendency of the petition. The petitioners contended that within days of the FIR registration, a mob targeted their house allegedly in collusion with the police, their commercial properties were sealed without notice, and they apprehended imminent demolition. They invoked the Supreme Court's directions in In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures , reported as (2025) 5 SCC 1 , to argue that the State's action constituted punitive demolition in violation of fundamental rights under Articles 14, 19(1)(g), 21, and 300-A of the Constitution of India . The State responded by denying any sealed or demolished properties (except the sawmill, sealed for recovery of prohibited wood), asserting that the petition was premature and offering an assurance that no demolition would occur without due process. 2. ISSUES FRAMED BY THE COURT Justice Sreedharan framed five comprehensive issues spanning the intersection of executive discretion and fundamental rights. The first issue examined whether there existed non-compliance with the Supreme Court's judgment in In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures (2025) 5 SCC 1 , particularly paragraphs 85 and 86 of that decision. The second issue probed whether the mere authority to demolish could justify the act of demolition, or whether the State bore a parens patriae duty not to demolish a dwelling in the absence of genuine public purpose. The third issue asked whether steps taken toward demolition immediately following an offence constituted a colourable exercise of executive discretion. The fourth issue addressed how the High Court should balance the statutory authority of the State against the fundamental rights of citizens under Articles 21 and 14 . The fifth issue inquired whether reasonable apprehension of demolition itself could constitute a valid cause of action for judicial intervention. These questions were not treated in isolation but addressed collectively through a jurisprudential framework that combined constitutional law, administrative law doctrine, and socio-economic realities to produce what Justice Sreedharan described as a judgment aimed at curtailing all demolitions of dwelling places in Uttar Pradesh that do not conform to the Supreme Court's established guidelines. 3. THE DOCTRINE OF RETRIBUTIVE EXERCISE OF EXECUTIVE DISCRETION The intellectual centrepiece of Justice Sreedharan's opinion is the articulation of a new constitutional concept — "Retributive Exercise of Executive Discretion." The Court carved this out as a distinct species from the established genus of colourable exercise of executive power. Where colourable exercise traditionally denotes the use of lawful power for an unlawful purpose, Justice Sreedharan's formulation specifically targets situations where municipal law enforcement machinery is weaponised as a punitive instrument against persons accused of crime. The Court observed that in bulldozing the house of an accused, the State is "not acting with the avowed aims of enforcing the Statement of Objects and Reasons of the municipal laws but to punish the accused and his entire family staying in that house, while projecting the action as one of removing an illegal construction." This formulation recognises that the real object of such demolitions frequently ceases to be enforcement of planning laws and becomes punishment of the accused and his family without any judicial determination of guilt. Justice Sreedharan termed this the "vilest specie" of colourable exercise, because it attacks the most fundamental of rights — shelter and livelihood — while wearing the mask of legitimate regulatory enforcement. The Court further observed that the State proceeds on the assumption that society "suffers from collective schadenfreude" and would applaud "vigilante style summary justice" delivered through bulldozers. Justice Sreedharan stated in unequivocal terms that this action by the State was "largely to satiate the perceived blood lust of a society fed on a staple diet of bulldozer justice over the electronic media, social media and messaging platforms." This observation directly challenges the political calculus underlying punitive demolitions and repositions the judiciary as a bulwark against majoritarian impulse masquerading as law enforcement. 4. RIGHT TO SHELTER UNDER ARTICLE 21 — JUDICIAL PRECEDENTS RELIED UPON Justice Sreedharan's opinion rests upon a formidable edifice of Supreme Court precedent establishing the right to shelter as an integral component of the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution . The judgment traces this jurisprudential lineage through several landmark decisions. The Constitution Bench judgment in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1986) AIR 180 occupies foundational significance in the opinion. Justice Sreedharan extensively quoted the Supreme Court's observation that "if the right to livelihood is not treated as a part of the constitutional right to life, the easiest way of depriving a person of his right to life would be to deprive him of his means of livelihood to the point of abrogation." The Court emphasised that this judgment established an "indelible proposition" that the right to life includes the right to livelihood, and that suspension of livelihood even for a single day without compelling cause violates the fundamental right to life itself. The Olga Tellis principle was applied to demonstrate that demolition of a dwelling destroys not merely a physical structure but the entire ecosystem of family stability, employment, education, and dignity that depends upon it. The judgment in Chameli Singh v. State of U.P., (1996) 2 SCC 549 was cited for its expansive articulation that the right to shelter "does not mean a mere right to a roof over one's head but right to all the infrastructure necessary to enable them to live and develop as a human being." Justice Sreedharan also relied upon Shiv Sagar Tiwari v. Union of India for the proposition that "life, livelihood and shelter are so mixed, mingled and fused that it is difficult to separate them," and Mansi Brar Fernandes v. Shubha Sharma for the Supreme Court's most recent reaffirmation that the right to shelter "casts a corresponding duty on the State to ensure access to adequate housing, particularly for weaker sections." Perhaps most significantly, the Court drew upon Zulfiquar Haider and Another v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Others (2025 INSC 480) , where the Supreme Court awarded compensation of Rs. 10,00,000 to each petitioner whose properties were razed without adhering to the procedure mandated in the bulldozer case. Justice Sreedharan noted that the Supreme Court in Zulfiquar Haider had expressed its "angst" at how demolitions continued "close on the heels" of the landmark judgment prohibiting punitive demolitions, observing that "these cases shock our conscience." 5. THE TWO-YEAR DEMOLITION EMBARGO AND OTHER PROPOSED SAFEGUARDS Against this constitutional backdrop, Justice Sreedharan proposed four concrete safeguards designed to prevent the continued weaponisation of municipal powers against accused persons. The most significant proposal is a two-year moratorium on demolishing any dwelling belonging to a person accused of an offence, calculated from the date of FIR registration. The Court's reasoning is grounded in behavioural observation: immediate public anger generated by an alleged offence usually subsides with time, and the possibility of executive action being influenced by public sentiment correspondingly diminishes. A two-year cooling period, the Court reasoned, removes the temporal nexus between accusation and demolition that reveals punitive intent. The second safeguard requires that occupants of allegedly illegal structures who have resided therein for three years or more must ordinarily receive one year's prior intimation before demolition proceedings are initiated, except where compelling public necessity demands immediate action. This proposal recognises the socio-economic reality that houses are not constructed overnight, and that State authorities who turned a blind eye for years — whether through corruption or bureaucratic patronage — cannot suddenly discover illegality precisely when a criminal accusation creates political incentive for demolition. The third proposed safeguard addresses selective enforcement, directing that authorities should not proceed against one allegedly illegal construction while ignoring similar violations in the vicinity. This directly responds to the Supreme Court's observation in the bulldozer case that "when a structure is chosen suddenly for demolition while the rest of the structures in the vicinity or the same neighbourhood are untouched, mala fide could loom large." The fourth safeguard mandates simultaneous disciplinary and corruption proceedings against officials whose connivance or negligence enabled the construction of allegedly illegal structures in the first instance. Justice Sreedharan reasoned that the State was "just as complicit through its corrupt agents (the bureaucracy) in the illegal occupation of the land by the proposed evictee" and could not therefore act as though only the citizen bore responsibility. 6. THE SPLIT VERDICT — JUSTICE SIDDHARTH NANDAN'S DISAGREEMENT While both judges on the bench agreed that arbitrary demolitions violate the rule of law and the doctrine of separation of powers, Justice Siddharth Nandan delivered a separate opinion disagreeing with the specific safeguards proposed by Justice Sreedharan. Justice Nandan held that courts cannot suspend the operation of statutory provisions for a fixed period through a general direction — that is, the two-year embargo exceeded what could legitimately be ordered under Article 226 of the Constitution. On the one-year notice requirement, Justice Nandan observed that such a direction could not be issued generally under Article 226, and that the High Court's writ powers must be exercised with judicial restraint and cannot impose additional procedural requirements not contemplated by the statute. This fundamental disagreement on the scope of judicial power under Article 226 resulted in a split verdict. The matter has been referred to a third judge for resolution. Until that reference is decided, the specific safeguards proposed by Justice Sreedharan do not represent the declared law of the Allahabad High Court. However, both judges concurred on key foundational principles — that demolitions must strictly comply with due process, that the rights of citizens must be protected from executive overreach, and that violations of established procedure invite contempt proceedings. Justice Nandan agreed with quoting late Urdu poet Bashir Badr's famous lines: "Log toot jate hai ek ghar banane mein, tum taras nahi khate bastiyan jalane mein" (People give everything to make a home; you burn settlements without remorse), underscoring that even the more restrained judicial opinion recognised the human devastation wrought by punitive demolitions. 7. CASE LAWS CITED AND STATUTORY FRAMEWORK Justice Sreedharan's opinion draws upon an extensive body of precedent and statutory authority. The primary statutory framework includes the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) , the POCSO Act , the Information Technology Act , the U.P. Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act , Articles 14, 19(1)(g), 21, 39(a), and 300-A of the Constitution of India , and various municipal and urban planning statutes of Uttar Pradesh. The following case laws form the judicial backbone of the opinion: In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures, (2025) 5 SCC 1 — The Supreme Court's landmark ruling that punitive demolitions violate separation of powers, with the authority to punish vesting exclusively in the judiciary. Rajendra Kumar Barjatya v. U.P. Avas Evam Vikas Parishad — Supplementary directions by the Supreme Court on preventing mushrooming of illegal constructions. Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1986) AIR 180 — Constitution Bench decision establishing right to livelihood as integral to right to life. Chameli Singh v. State of U.P., (1996) 2 SCC 549 — Right to shelter as fundamental right encompassing adequate living infrastructure. Shiv Sagar Tiwari v. Union of India — Inseparability of life, livelihood, and shelter. Mansi Brar Fernandes v. Shubha Sharma — Most recent Supreme Court reaffirmation of right to shelter under Article 21. Zulfiquar Haider v. State of Uttar Pradesh, 2025 INSC 480 — Supreme Court awarding compensation for demolitions conducted in defiance of established guidelines. Indira Nehru Gandhi v. Raj Narain, 1975 Supp SCC 1 — Separation of powers as part of the basic structure of the Constitution. 8. SIGNIFICANCE, IMPLICATIONS, AND CONCLUSION The opinion of Justice Atul Sreedharan in Faimuddeen v. State of U.P. represents one of the most comprehensive judicial engagements with the phenomenon of punitive demolitions in Indian constitutional law. While it remains a split verdict awaiting resolution by a third judge, its significance transcends the immediate procedural outcome. The coining of "Retributive Exercise of Executive Discretion" as a distinct constitutional doctrine provides future courts with precise analytical vocabulary to identify and strike down demolitions that masquerade as regulatory enforcement while actually serving retributive purposes. The two-year embargo proposal, whether ultimately adopted or not, forces a critical conversation about the temporal proximity between accusation and demolition as evidence of mala fide intent. The judgment also situates bulldozer justice within broader socio-economic realities — the crushing poverty that compels citizens to build non-compliant structures, the State corruption that enables such construction for decades before suddenly discovering illegality, and the media-driven public sentiment that incentivises spectacular executive action over patient judicial process. Justice Sreedharan's observation that India's per capita income in Uttar Pradesh stands at approximately Rs. 9,083 per month — making compliant housing financially impossible for most citizens — transforms the legal analysis from abstract doctrine into lived reality. The reference to the Supreme Court's bulldozer case and the observation that demolitions continue "with impunity" despite that landmark ruling underscores the gap between judicial pronouncement and executive compliance that this opinion seeks to bridge. For practitioners, the case provides a robust framework for challenging demolitions through writ petitions, particularly where temporal proximity to FIR registration creates a presumption of punitive intent. For the State, it serves as an unequivocal warning that the judiciary will not permit the substitution of labels — from "criminals" to "land mafia" or "illegal encroachers" — as a means of circumventing Supreme Court directives. And for constitutional discourse more broadly, it reinforces that in a democracy governed by the rule of law, no executive action — however popular, however politically expedient — can be permitted to function as punishment without trial. As the matter now proceeds to a third judge, the legal community awaits a definitive resolution on whether these proposed safeguards will crystallise into binding law or remain as persuasive judicial philosophy. Either way, the principles articulated in this opinion have already enriched the constitutional vocabulary available to courts grappling with the tension between executive power and individual liberty. Keywords: Bulldozer justice, Allahabad High Court, Faimuddeen v State of UP, punitive demolition, Article 21, right to shelter, retributive exercise of executive discretion, two-year embargo on demolition, Justice Atul Sreedharan, FIR registration, colourable exercise of power, due process, rule of law, separation of powers, municipal law enforcement