Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Bulldozer action going on in the state for a long time may stop after the Supreme Court judgment on Wednesday. Now that the SC issued an order, it would not be easy for the government to go for such an action. In the past six years, thousands of buildings have been bulldozed in the state.
Such actions were taken to dismantle illegal buildings, remove encroachments and to free government land from the grips of the mafia. Apart from that, the buildings of some criminals and of those who were involved in riots were bulldozed. Bulldozers have been used for several years to remove encroachments upon government land. For removing encroachments with bulldozers, former chief minister Babulal Gaur was called ‘Bulldozer Minister’.
Nevertheless, bulldozer action, during Digvijaya Singh’s tenure as chief minister for ten years and during the BJP’s first 15 years’ rule, was not much discussed. The issue became popular after UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath launched the campaign of Bulldozer Justice which was followed by the Congress government led by the then chief minister Kamal Nath. The Nath-led government started bulldozer action in 2018. When the honey trap case came to light, the houses of some people were bulldozed in Indore. Afterwards, bulldozer action was launched in the name of checking the mafia.
The campaign that began from Indore was carried out in Gwalior, Sagar and in other places. After the ouster of the Congress government, Shivraj Singh Chouhan again took over the reins of power in the state. During his tenure as chief minister in 2020, the Chouhan-led government plunged into action bulldozing thousands of buildings. Because the government gave a free hand to the officials of the district administration they also used bulldozers as weapons against the criminals.
Bulldozer was used against rapists, murderers and those who were involved in molesting women and in torturing the people of the SC/ST community. After the communal riots in Khargone, the government used bulldozers against the people of a particular community. After Mohan Yadav Yadav took over as chief minister, several bulldozer actions were taken. Bulldozing the palatial house of Haji Shahjad Ali after the stone-pelting incident in Chhatarpur hogged the media headlines across the country, although Yadav said he was opposed to such action.
Tankha welcomes SC judgment
Rajya Sabha member and senior lawyer Vivek Tankha has welcomed the SC judgment. The SC has declared the bulldozer action asunconstitutional and that the government cannot interfere in the court’s area of jurisdiction, Tankha said. The officers and politicians, involved in such actions, will have no chance to get out of the arms of law, he said.
