The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a contempt petition against Assam’s chief secretary and Goalpara district authorities for alleged violations of the court’s earlier guidelines on eviction and demolition drives that took place last month, Live Law reported.

A bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran issued notices to the chief secretary and other officials, seeking their responses in the matter within two weeks, PTI reported.

Advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the petitioners, told the court that the state authorities issued eviction notices to residents in Goalpara’s Hasilabeel village just two days before razing their homes.

He argued that even those accused of encroaching on government land are entitled to due legal procedure.

“These are 667 poor families who have been there on that land for 60–70 years,” he said, adding that many had been forced to settle in higher areas due to shifts in the course of the Brahmaputra river.

The petitioners contended that the evictions and demolitions “predominantly targeted a minority community, leaving out similarly placed persons from the majority community untouched”, PTI reported.

When Hegde requested interim relief in the form of a status quo, the court cautioned that any relief would not apply if the demolitions involved government land.

The petition relies on a Supreme Court judgement from November that held as illegal the practice of demolishing properties of persons accused of crimes as a punitive measure. It added that processes must be followed before removing allegedly illegal encroachments.

The judgement, however, specified that the guidelines would not apply to unauthorised structures on public property, including roads, riverbanks and railway lines.

The contempt plea has been filed by eight residents of Hasilabeel village in Goalpara who claim to have lived in the area for over six decades with valid voter identity cards, PAN and Aadhaar cards, Live Law reported.

According to the plea, the demolitions there began after a circle officer issued an undated notice on June 13, giving just two days to vacate land reportedly allotted to the Assam Fisheries Development Corporation in 2015.

They alleged the authorities only gave common notices to the affected through announcements on a microphone, rather than giving individual notices.

On June 16, district authorities in Goalpara demolished the homes of 690 families in Hasilabeel. This was followed by a second drive in the district on July 12, when 1,080 more families were evicted from their homes in the Paikan Reserve Forest.

Between 2016 and August 2024, more than 10,620 families – the majority of them Muslim – have been evicted from government land, according to data provided by the state revenue and disaster management department.

Also read: How can Indian democracy allow the open oppression of Bengali-origin Muslims by Assam?