Demolition Alone Won't Fix Delhi's Illegal Building Crisis: Harish Salve

The Supreme Court has the authority to order action against illegal constructions in Delhi, but pulling down such structures on its own will not resolve the city's decades-old building problem, former Solicitor General of India Harish Salve has said.

The top court is scheduled to take up the issue of unauthorised construction in the capital days after a building housing college students collapsed in the Satya Niketan area, killing at least seven people.

Speaking on a television programme, Salve argued that any enforcement drive must account for where the occupants of such buildings will go, and why they were pushed towards illegal or unsafe housing in the first place.

"If there is an illegal building, find out who made that illegal building, chase him, hunt him down, put him in jail," he said. But he added that the government cannot simply remove the people living in these structures without arranging alternatives. "You can't throw people out on the street," he said.

Many middle-class and lower-middle-class families, he noted, may have spent their life savings on such homes because no affordable legal option existed. "Why have they had to buy illegal buildings? Because legal buildings are unavailable or affordable," he said.

He also pointed to students living in paying-guest accommodations, saying they need somewhere to stay. "Students are not staying there because they enjoyed living there," he said, citing the shortage of affordable and legal housing. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has identified around 52 illegal or dilapidated PG accommodations in the city within three days of the tragedy.

According to Salve, builders who occupy government land, convert agricultural land without permission or add unauthorised floors should face strict action. He blamed agencies including the Delhi Development Authority and civic bodies for failing to plan for the city's growing population and housing needs.

Illegal construction in Delhi, he said, is not a new problem. Recalling his involvement in public interest litigations during the tenure of former Chief Justice A S Kirpal, he said a large part of the city has been built without following proper norms, and estimated that more than 40 per cent of Delhi is illegal. Several unauthorised colonies, he added, have not adhered to development norms.

The Supreme Court has intervened on the issue before. In 2006, it ordered large-scale demolition of illegal buildings, but Parliament later enacted laws and measures that extended protection and regularisation to several unauthorised colonies and constructions. Salve also recalled that the court had earlier taken up the matter through committees before stepping back. "The court lost interest because at some point the court said, well, this is not our job," he said.

He called for a forward-looking master plan for the capital. Where extra floors must be removed, he said, the government should offer an alternative, giving residents time to shift to new buildings before the illegal portions are demolished. Such a process, he stressed, cannot be carried out through sudden or knee-jerk action.

Salve rejected the idea of sending bulldozers to every unauthorised building without considering the people living there. While the rich and powerful who deliberately put up illegal homes or commercial structures should not be shielded, he said, the government must recognise that many ordinary residents are in these buildings because the system failed to provide affordable legal housing. "Housing is a very basic need," he said, adding that it cannot be limited to one section of society.