Sheltered Illegality: Delhi's Unauthorized Constructions and the Legal Paradox

The capital's long-standing problem of illegal construction has again surfaced in the public and legal domain with the horrific collapse of a four-storey building in Mustafabad, North East Delhi, in April 2025, which resulted in eleven fatalities.  It was an indicator of a more malignant disease of buildings, in which there has been systemic disregard of public safety and building standards, with the help of legal immunity meant to provide temporary cover. The National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act, 2006, is at the heart of this dilemma.  For the last 20 years, this act has been a legal sanctuary for illegal structures in the name of urban regularization and social welfare.

Before a regularization policy was developed for them, the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act was first passed in 2006 as a stopgap measure to maintain the status quo for a number of unapproved development categories, primarily slums, village abadi pockets, and unauthorized colonies. By placing penal measures like demolitions and sealings under moratorium, it safeguarded buildings as of a "cut-off" date. Despite being originally intended for a single year, the Act has been extended almost every two years as a result of subsequent changes. The second version of the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Amendment Act, 2023, provides protection for structures constructed before June 1, 2014, until December 31, 2026.

This law has legalized inertia, although its claimed noble purpose is to protect vulnerable citizens of squatter settlements from blanket eviction or retaliatory demolition without alternative rehabilitation.  The "temporary" provision has been continually extended, so that there is a legal culture in which individuals, officials, and developers alike expect immunity—even when they build projects that violate zoning and safety codes.  Widespread urban consequences have followed this legal cover.  Delhi needs more than 100,000 new housing units every year, but approval for only about 6,000 building plans is granted every year, according to figures from the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.  As a result, approximately 75 percent of housing demand being met through illegal constructions.

The protective blanket of the Act has rendered it meaningless to institute building codes because authorities are largely powerless to act against buildings that are patently unsafe or illegal, especially in cases where owners or contractors claim the buildings are covered by the "cut-off" dates set by the law.

For this reason, the doubt over the date of the construction—before or after the cut-off—becomes fertile ground for corruption. Provided the history of retrospective regularizations, all the developers are convinced that sooner or later any unlawful development will be approved.  This erodes the compliance culture and instills risky, high-density construction habits, especially among the lower economic rungs.

The origin of this legislative cover is rooted in Delhi's 2006 sealing drive that shut down business in residential zones.  In order to avoid punitive measures and appease groups that had been impacted, the Central Government brought about the Act due to large-scale protests and political opposition.  Gradually, this cover was also provided to slums, unauthorized colonies, and village abadi extensions as well as commercial misuses.

Though relief on a short-term basis may have been the initial aim, political convenience more than foresight has resulted in the subsequent extensions.  Out of fear of reaction from the large vote bank residing in unauthorized colonies, Delhi's successive governments along with the Center have hesitated to impose strict urban rule.  Regularization drives that were an earlier shield for the weak have over time turned into means of electoral appeasement instead of true urban planning, and have been a ready alibi for institutional complacence.

There is a delicate balancing act in the judicial pronouncements, which have insisted that legal impunity cannot be a permanent characteristic while simultaneously acknowledging the need for protection of the urban poor from random demolitions. In fact, a legislative sunset clause linked to tangible policy success and not the political cycles has been supported by different benches as an essential element in regularization programs.

The argument that long-term integration into Delhi's Master Plan will ultimately provide order is frequently used to justify the laws safeguarding unauthorised constructions.  Delay, lack of coordination, and out-of-date zoning regulations have plagued implementation of Master Plan for Delhi (MPD) 2021 and its successor version for 2041.  The Master Plan is optimally described as a guideline; the planning objective is merely aspirational in the presence of weak local government, GIS-based enforcement, and successful land audits.  For inducing compliance and urban formalization, plans such as PM-UDAY (Pradhan Mantri Unauthorized Colonies in Delhi Awas Adhikar Yojana) were initiated to grant ownership rights to the residents of illegal colonies.  But adoption has not been universal, and there are administrative hurdles still.  Simply conferring protection under statute runs the risk of establishing a semi-legal gray area in the urban space if these arrangements are not regulated and integrated into land titling procedures.

Delhi's illegal buildings are a bigger urban paradox—where protection required and the struggle for shelter intersect— a city in which the right to livelihood is most often exercised in the shadowy areas of legality. Can the State continue to invoke the right to life and livelihood as justification for shielding blatant violations of planning norms? Or has this right been selectively interpreted to excuse what is, in essence, institutional complicity?

At what point does the repeated extension of a "special provision" cease to be exceptional and become the rule? And how long can a law originally envisioned as a humanitarian pause be stretched before it becomes a legislative crutch for political inaction? The National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Act was not drafted to last forever—yet it has outlived every principle of temporariness it claimed to uphold.

Must we wait for more buildings to collapse before the line between protection and permissiveness is redrawn? If the judiciary is now compelled to monitor urban safety, what does it say about the state of our executive machinery? Where do the promises of electoral regularization end, and the constitutional duty to ensure safe, habitable spaces begin?

Delhi's urban chaos is no longer a question of planning failure—it is a question of governance. As the capital stumbles from one collapse to the next, the silence of policy and the noise of populism have converged. The tragedy of Mustafabad was not just the collapse of a structure—it was the collapse of accountability.