Right to shelter limits eviction of displaced retirees from government accommodation until rehabilitation or alternate housing is arranged.

Displaced Kashmiri Pandit retired employees occupying government accommodation in Delhi were treated as raising constitutional and humanitarian shelter claims, not merely a routine public premises dispute. The Court applied the principle that the right to shelter forms part of dignity, life, and equality, and held that forced eviction without alternative accommodation or rehabilitation would be unjust in these exceptional circumstances. It recognised that the Government could frame a rehabilitation scheme and regulate entitlement to alternate accommodation, but that eviction could not proceed mechanically before such arrangements were made. The protection of occupation was therefore sustained pending suitable rehabilitation or alternate shelter.

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Issues: (i) Whether retired Central Government employees who were Kashmiri Pandits and had been transferred to Delhi for safety reasons could be required to vacate government accommodation without alternative shelter being provided. (ii) Whether the constitutional right to shelter and the humanitarian circumstances of forced displacement justified continuation in the allotted accommodation until rehabilitation or alternate accommodation was arranged.

Issue (i): Whether retired Central Government employees who were Kashmiri Pandits and had been transferred to Delhi for safety reasons could be required to vacate government accommodation without alternative shelter being provided.

Analysis: The respondents had been displaced from Kashmir in exceptional circumstances, their homes had been destroyed, and they had no other residence in the country. The dispute was not treated as a routine public premises matter alone, because the writ petitions raised constitutional and human rights dimensions. The prior decision concerning similarly placed Kashmiri Pandit retirees was treated as applicable in principle, with the difference that the present employees belonged to the Central Government rather than the State Government. The Court held that the distinction between the State's duty and the Government's duty was illusory in the facts of the case.

Conclusion: The respondents were entitled to continue in occupation until suitable rehabilitation or alternate accommodation was made available.

Issue (ii): Whether the constitutional right to shelter and the humanitarian circumstances of forced displacement justified continuation in the allotted accommodation until rehabilitation or alternate accommodation was arranged.

Analysis: The Court held that the right to shelter is part of the guarantees of equality, life, and dignity, and that displaced persons who cannot safely return to their homes are entitled to protection and assistance. The Court relied on the special factual background, the humanitarian character of the dispute, and the principle that justice-oriented interpretation may be adopted where rigid application of technical rules would produce injustice. The respondents' right to shelter was recognized as co-extensive with the Government's obligation to provide appropriate rehabilitation, while the Government was left free to frame a scheme governing eligibility and terms of alternate accommodation.

Conclusion: The constitutional and humanitarian claim to shelter was accepted, subject to the Government's power to frame and a rehabilitation scheme.

Final Conclusion: The appeals failed on the merits and the directions protecting the respondents' occupation of the accommodation were sustained, while leaving room for a future rehabilitation scheme to regulate entitlement.

Ratio Decidendi: In exceptional displacement cases, the constitutional right to shelter may require the State or Government to provide alternate accommodation or rehabilitation before evicting displaced retirees from public accommodation, and the ordinary public premises route cannot be applied mechanically to defeat that right.

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