The Existing Scenario of Issuing Building Demolition Orders
When a local government receives a complaint or finds that a building owner has erected an unauthorised building in violation of the building permit and building rules, it often invokes its demolition power under Section 406 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 — but does so in haste, without following the prescribed procedure such as mandatory provisional notice, personal hearing, and drafts the order ignoring the basic principles of natural justice.
Building Law Violator Gets a Stay Order
Then the violator approaches the Tribunal for Local Self Government Institutions, constituted under Section 509 of the Kerala Municipality Act, 1994 (and, for Panchayat areas, Sections 271-S and 276 of the Kerala Panchayat Raj Act, 1994), challenging the order on procedural defects, and obtains a provisional stay or, eventually, a favourable order setting it aside — leaving the illegal structure intact.
In such cases, the Tribunal is often left with no real choice but to set aside the order and remand it to the municipality, without any demolition taking place for years.
This is a recurring, tactical pattern: corrupt local bodies misuse improperly crafted orders to shield patently illegal buildings from demolition for years.
How the Tribunal Can Break This Complicity or Connivance
The Tribunal can break this cycle — without validating improperly crafted orders or indirectly protecting unlawful structures — by staying or setting them aside and directing the local government to issue a fresh, procedurally sound demolition order.
In doing so, the Tribunal should have regard to the safeguards laid down by the Supreme Court in In Re: Directions in the Matter of Demolition of Structures [2024 INSC 866], to the extent those directions apply to the case at hand.
Supreme Court’s Directions on Demolition of Illegal Structures
In that judgment, the Supreme Court prescribed rigid, mandatory procedures to prevent arbitrary demolitions carried out without due process, in direct violation of Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. It is important to note that the Court expressly excluded unauthorised structures on public roads, footpaths, railway lines, and water bodies, and cases already covered by an existing court order, from this notice-and-hearing regime.
Where a Tribunal applies these directions to a routine building-permit violation on private land — as distinct from encroachment on public land — it should record that the case falls outside the excluded categories before relying on the judgment.
The Supreme Court directed that, subject to the above exclusions, no demolition can take place without adherence to the following:
- Mandatory 15-Day Prior Notice — No action can be taken without a formal show-cause notice served by registered post and physically affixed to the outer wall of the structure. The owner must be given a clear 15 days to respond.
- Public Digital Portal for Transparency — Every local municipality must maintain a public digital portal on which all notices, inspection logs, and final orders are uploaded promptly for transparency.
- Requirement of “Speaking Orders” — The municipal executive cannot rely on a cookie-cutter, pre-designed template. It must systematically address every objection raised by the owner and record explicit, detailed reasons why the structure cannot be regularised or retained.
- The 15-Day Post-Order Window — Even after a final demolition order has been legally passed and uploaded, no demolition must take place for a further period of 15 days. This period gives the citizen, if aggrieved, a fair chance to approach an appellate body or the High Court for relief.
- Mandatory Videography and Accountability — The demolition itself must be recorded on video, and any official who flouts these rules is liable for contempt of court and personally liable for damages.
These directions operate as an additional layer of safeguards over and above — not in substitution of — the notice and hearing already required under Section 406 of the Municipality Act. A municipal body that complies only with Section 406 without also meeting the Supreme Court’s timelines and requirements remains non-compliant with the directions.
Tribunal May Order a Conditional Remand by Partially Allowing the Appeal
In cases of patent illegality on the face — where the record clearly shows that the builder has blatantly violated the state’s building laws — if the Tribunal fully allows the appeal and quashes the order outright, it lends recognition to an entirely unlawful structure.
On the other hand, if the Tribunal simply dismisses the developer’s appeal, it ends up upholding a procedurally defective municipal order. Neither outcome serves the rule of law.
The correct approach lies not in weighing the appellant’s conduct but in recognising that the defect in the order is a severable procedural defect, distinct from the substantive finding of illegality. Where the two can be separated, the Tribunal should not allow the appeal in full.
Instead, it should partly allow the appeal — setting aside the order only to the extent of its procedural infirmity — while directing the municipal body to issue a fresh, procedurally proper order within a prescribed time frame and in accordance with the Supreme Court’s directions.
What the Tribunal May Include in the Judgment
The Tribunal should record in its final judgment that, on verification of the site records and approved plans, the local body’s finding of structural illegality is substantively correct and justified. The order must state that the appeal is allowed solely to the limited extent of correcting the procedural defect, so that the underlying illegality is never legitimised.
The matter must then be remanded to the local body subject to a conditional timeline. The building owner must be given proper notice — specifying the unauthorised construction with identifiable measurements — and must submit an explanation within 15 days from the date of that notice. The fresh hearing must focus strictly on whether the specific violations can legally be regularised under the applicable local building rules.
The Municipal Secretary must personally review the response, conduct a fair hearing, and pass a comprehensive, legally sound final “speaking order” within the following 30 days.
High Court Directed the Tribunal to Issue Speaking Orders
The Tribunal’s remand orders must themselves be speaking orders. In Renjini K.K. v. Mannancherry Grama Panchayat & Ors. [2026:KER:33874], the underlying dispute was the Panchayat’s refusal to assign a building number and occupancy certificate to the petitioner’s residential building, citing National Highway setback violations; a demolition notice followed as a consequential order.
The Kerala High Court set aside both the Tribunal’s order and the consequential demolition notice, precisely because the Tribunal had disposed of the appeal in a few cryptic lines without engaging with the petitioner’s legal and factual contentions.
The High Court held that this fell short of Rule 20 of the Tribunal for the Kerala Local Self Government Institutions Rules, 1999, which requires the Tribunal to record its decision after considering the pleadings and records and issue a reasoned, “speaking” order, not a bare conclusion.
The High Court remanded the matter for fresh consideration, affording a hearing to all affected parties. The principle applies with equal force to a conditional remand in a demolition appeal: a Tribunal cannot direct a fresh order without itself giving reasons for doing so.
Enforcing Institutional Accountability
To ensure that a complicit local body does not deliberately orchestrate another procedural lapse during the second round, the local body should be directed to file an official Compliance and Action Taken Report with the Tribunal within 45 days of the judgment.
The order should explicitly warn municipal officials that failing to issue a legally watertight order within the stipulated time, or attempting to engineer further delay, will be treated as wilful administrative negligence or lapse.
The Tribunal may also include a mandate that any further procedural failure will result in the file being forwarded directly to the Principal Secretary of the State’s Local Self Government Department for initiation of disciplinary proceedings against the erring municipal officers.
Conclusion
Existing procedures for ensuring fairness should never serve as a shield for building-law violators and complicit municipal executives.
By adopting a conditional remand, the Tribunal for Local Self Government Institutions can ensure strict compliance with the procedural standards laid down by the statutes and the Supreme Court, while still ensuring demolition of illegal structures but not others.
