Orissa HC orders state government to pay Rs 10 lakh for illegal demolition

The Orissa High Court has ordered the Odisha government to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation for illegally demolishing a structure belonging to a community centre.

Of the Rs 10 lakh, Rs 2 lakh will be recovered from the salary of a tehsildar, the court said in its June 20 order.

Justice Sanjeeb Kumar Panigrahi said that the court had taken serious note of the conduct of the tehsildar, “whose actions in this case reflect a steady and conscious departure from the standards expected of a responsible” official.

“When judicial directions were first issued, there was an opportunity to act with restraint and deference to the process of law…” the bench said. “It was a deliberate act taken while judicial consideration was still underway.”

The community centre in Cuttack district’s Athagarh was located on a plot of land that was classified as a grazing ground, which falls under the 1972 Odisha Prevention of Land Encroachment Act.

The centre purportedly existed in some form since 1985. It was reconstructed between 2016 and 2018 using public funds sanctioned under the state government’s Ama Gaon Ama Vikas Yojana and the Member of Legislative Assembly Local Area Development Fund.

While the authorities had never objected to the structure in the past, encroachment proceedings were initiated in July 2024 under...

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