Demolition Of House For Crime Of One Person Amounts To 'Collective Punishment' On Entire Family Which Is Impermissible : Supreme Court

While issuing a set of directions to curb "bulldozer actions", the Supreme Court has observed that demolishing the houses of persons on the ground of their alleged involvement in crimes would amount to inflicting a "collective punishment" on the family, which is impermissible under the Constitutional scheme.

A bench comprising Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan observed in the judgment :

"Right to life is a fundamental right. As already discussed herein above, with the expanded scope of law, the right to shelter has also been considered as one of the facets of Article 21 of the Constitution. In one structure, various people or maybe even a few families could reside. The question that is required to be considered is, as to whether if only one of the residents of such a structure is an accused or convicted in a crime, could the authorities be permitted to demolish the entire structure thereby removing the shelter from the heads of the persons who are not directly or indirectly related with the commission of crime."

It is a settled principle of criminal jurisprudence as recognized in our country that a person is presumed to be innocent till he is held guilty. In our view, if demolition of a house is permitted wherein number of persons of a family or a few families reside only on the ground that one person residing in such a house is either an accused or convicted in the crime, it will amount to inflicting a collective punishment on the entire family or the families residing in such structure. In our considered view, our constitutional scheme and the criminal jurisprudence would never permit the same."

The judgment quoted the observations made by Justice VR Krishna Iyer in Gujarat Steel Tubes Ltd. and others v. Gujarat Steel Tubes Mazdoor Sabha and others : "we have rejected, as a nation, the theory of community guilt and collective punishment and instead that no man shall be punished except for his own guilt."

Other reports about the judgment can be read here.