A Two-Part Design

The legislative mechanics of the act are very straight-forward. Section 4 of the act voids any transfers that took place in the area that was declared as a 'disturbed area', placing the burden on the donees to prove that the sale has been transacted with fair value and with free consent. Section 5 of the act continues the same test, that subsequent to the declaration of an area as 'disturbed area', all transfers must undergo the collector's approval in that notified area. However, the inquiry should be limited to merely two criteria listed above. However, it is prudent to note that the 1991 act never listed demography. The terms “clustering” and “demographic area” were never in the genus of the parent act. Neither were there any calls for officials to consider the religious mix of a place.

However, the issues arose with poor draftsmanship of the statute, wherein power to declare an area as disturbed was granted on wide and poorly defined words. This resulted in areas being declared disturbed for an indefinite period of time, residents were never afforded an opportunity to be heard before declaring an area to be disturbed. This allowed immense executive power and discretion and also allowed the statute to find uses that were never originally intended by the drafter. In fact, much of the resulting litigation is an attempt to fill these resulting loopholes.

The High Court's Long Effort at Containment

The Gujarat high court has reiterated the message in all subsequent rulings, since 1996- The role of the collector is not to devise any social policy, but rather restricted merely and strictly to examine the criteria of consent and value. If in any case, both these conditions are fulfilled then, the officer has no jurisdiction to deny sanction. The same was held in Padmaben Rasiklal Mehta v. State Of Gujarat (1996). Fifteen years later, in SNA infraprojects v. sub registrar (2011), it rejected the idea that neighbours could block sales, observing explicitly that the act was intended to prevent communal migration and nothing in it suggested an intention to divide citizens on communal lines.

The same restated in simpler terms, in Bharatkumar Shankarlal Somani (2017), where the court said that considerations beyond consent and value were not germane. Further, in a 2020 vadodara matter (2023 LiveLaw (Guj) 182), Justice Biren Vishnav treated police reports about possible polarisations as irrelevant to the statutory inquiry. The judgement came merely months before the legislation moved in the stark opposite directions, writing the very considerations in the act the court had set aside.

The 2020 Amendment

Gujarat act no. 17 of 2020 changed the very legislative corpus of the law. The minister piloting the same spoke openly of checking “polarisation” and preserving “demographic balance”, language that has nothing to do with distress sales. The amendment defined “proper clustering of persons of one community” by reference to shared norms, religion, values, identity and “a sense of place”, terms that supply no workable standard for deciding when clustering becomes improper. A revised section 3 allowed an area to be declared as disturbed wherein polarisation was thought likely to occur, or a residual clause, wherever the area was considered prone to a breakdown of public order. There was a sharp rise in penalties and new committees were established to study and monitor the composition of neighbourhoods.

The Stay, the Supreme Court, and a Workaround

The new provisions of the act were challenged immediately. On January 20, 2021, a division bench of the high court restrained the state from issuing any notifications under the amended section 39(1)(ii) and (iii). That interim injunction still holds true, and no notifications under demographic grounds were issued in the years since. In December 2024, when petitioners approached the Supreme Court, they refused to interfere, and without commenting on the merits of the case. Left the matter to the high court while pressing for an early hearing.

In March 2026 the state tried yet another route. It amended the act to rename 'disturbed areas' as 'specified areas', and deleted the definition of 'proper clustering', while leaving the operative part of it in place, thereby giving neighbours of a property locus standi to object to transfers in such specified areas. This reversed the position that was settled in SNA infraprojects, and empowered collectors to take temporary custody of such properties that were transferred without sanction.

What Figures Show

The administrative record becomes difficult to justify on neutral grounds with over 249 applications pending in 2024 in Vadodara, none were cleared by June, with the majority sitting unresolved at the police verification stage. Ahmedabad data reflects something even more interesting, data between 2011-2019 shows about 2.3% approval rate for inter-community transfers, versus approval within 2 weeks for same community transactions. A disparity of such quantum cannot be merely administrative and sits in conflict with article 15. Properties in such areas go at discounted prices and banks are wary of lending against it, thereby defeating the very intent of the act. Sheba Tejani's study in Urban Studies (2022) describes the Act functioning as a form of planning that consolidates Muslim residence into enclaves such as Juhapura. The effect can reach even welfare schemes: Muslim families allotted housing in a Hindu-majority part of Bhayli were, after local protests, redirected to an existing Muslim locality.

Gomtipur, August 2025

The human cost of this is easy to visualise in a single case, In October 2024 a family in Ahmedabad's Gomtipur bought a house from a Hindu neighbour for Rs 15.5 lakh and the payment was completed by December. The vendor's husband passed away before possession changed hands, and the son moved back in and refused to transfer and leave. The family was pressured to abandon the purchase, invoking the Disturbed Areas Act. Allegedly, upon contacting the police, they were of little help. On 7 August 2025 the dispute turned violent, and the youngest daughter, fifteen-year-old Saniya Ansari, was among those assaulted.

She died by suicide two days later, leaving a note, naming those who were responsible. It should be noted that no order under the said act was ever passed. However, the statute did the damage by lending an air of legality to a campaign of criminal intimidation. This serves as a reminder, that a law can shape conduct of a society by merely existing, and by signalling whose presence in a neighbourhood the State regards as a problem.

The Constitutional Aspect-

The amended act does not offer any intelligible differentia for improper clustering' which leaves officials to decide cases on instinct and brings it into tension with Article 14. By making residence turn on community composition, it strains the right under Article 19(1)(e) to live anywhere in India, since a restriction aimed at preserving religious balance is not easily described as reasonable. And it dispenses with the procedural basics that Article 21 requires—notice, a hearing, a time limit, a route of appeal before rather than after the damage is done. The 2026 provision allowing neighbours to object makes things worse, enlisting private citizens to police the boundaries that the State may not lawfully draw itself. The original statute was a narrow response to a real problem. What it has become, through amendment and selective use, is something its drafters did not intend and the Constitution does not permit. The challenge now pending before the Chief Justice's Bench will decide whether that drift is corrected or confirmed. A case that began as a question about property has, by now, become a question about whether the law will be allowed to sort citizens by faith.

Author Shreya Upadhyay is a Teaching & Research Associate of Law at GNLU & Hitarth Purohit is a Law student at GNLU. Views are personal.