Evictions, meaningful engagement and the right to housing in India: two roads

This paper examines eviction cases in India with a focus on meaningful engagement as a component of the right to housing. It argues that the jurisprudence on the right to housing in India has taken two divergent roads: the first characterised by summary evictions, where residents are treated as ‘encroachers’ and the developmental aims of the state are given a priority; and the second wherein ‘informal’ residents are treated as rights-bearers notwithstanding the absence of formal title over the land on which they reside, and the state is required to meaningfully engage with them to vindicate their right to housing. The paper explains the roots of this divergent jurisprudence and indicates its continuance by examining recent archetypical cases. It adds to comparative literature on the right to housing in two ways: first, it extends the methods of doing comparative doctrinal research on the right to housing. It argues that to understand the right to housing in India, it is important to pay attention to interim orders and judicial process as much as final judgments. In the paper, the authors examine interim orders and judicial process from their position as participants in recent legal proceedings. Second, it adds to the literature around meaningful engagement, consultation and participation in the context of housing rights, by indicating how the meaningful engagement doctrine that evolved in South Africa has made its way into the jurisprudence of Indian courts, and in turn what Indian jurisprudence on meaningful engagement contributes to comparative understandings.