India's top court has said that authorities cannot demolish homes merely because a person has been accused of a crime and has laid down strict guidelines for any such action. The ruling comes in response to a bunch of pleas seeking action against authorities using demolition as a punitive measure against those accused or convicted of crimes.

The tactic, in which state governments raze the homes and businesses of people as acts of retribution, has been on the rise in recent years.

The Indian Supreme Court of India rejected a petition to outlaw WhatsApp due to privacy and security concerns. The petitioner, a software engineer, claimed the messaging app violates the IT Rules and fundamental rights,

India’s Supreme Court banned the use of so-called “bulldozer justice,” the government demolition of homes by state officials to punish those accused of crimes that activists said was a tactic predominantly used by Hindu nationalist authorities against the minority Muslim community.