The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to pass orders to ban bulldozer demolitions across the country and said that the blanket ban will curtail the rights of civic authorities.

The bench of Justices BR Gavai and PS Narasimha was hearing a petition by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind against bulldozer demolition in Uttar Pradesh.

While the petitioner has alleged that the bulldozers specifically targeted members of the minority community, the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government has maintained that the demolition drives were routine exercises to remove the encroachment.

In its plea, the petitioners had alleged that the government is taking selective action against those accused of riots.

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Appearing for Jamiat, advocates Dushyant Dave and CU Singh, said authorities are picking, choosing and demolishing homes of people from the other community.

To this, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta and Senior Advocate Harish Salve replied that there is no other community as pointed out by the petitioner and all communities are Indian communities. There is no connection between the demolitions and rioting, and the anti-encroachment exercises started long before the riots, Salve and Mehta said.

Urging the court to not impose a blanket ban on demolitions, the UP government counsel said the rule of law needs to be followed. Not every riot accused can be protected from demolitions under a blanket order, they said.

Last month, the civic authorities of Prayagrah had demolished the residence of Javed Mohammad, a leader of the Welfare Party of India and the father of activist Afreen Fatima. For which the Uttar Pradesh government had come under criticism.

Javed Mohammed was allegedly made the main accused in the violence in Prayagraj over suspended BJP leader Nupur Sharma’s remarks on Prophet Muhammad.

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