Encroachment on public land — complaint plus RTI

Last reviewed: 26 August 2026. Duties and routes summarised from municipal Act provisions and the Supreme Court's street-encroachment law.

Any structure, storage or occupation that takes over land reserved for public use:

1. Footpaths and road margins — ramps, counters, parked displays, stairs.
2. Storm drains and shoulder drains — the classic shop-front slab.
3. Parks, playgrounds and civic amenity sites — sheds, godowns, private gardens.
4. Lakes and rajakaluves — the lake-boundary and storm-channel constructions that flood a whole layout when blocked.
5. Government plots and gomal land — private compounds slowly extended over them.

The land is public, so the injury is to everyone — and the law arms any resident to complain, not only the neighbour.

1. State municipal Acts — the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, Delhi's municipal legislation and their cousins across states — all follow one pattern: the Commissioner or municipal authority may remove encroachments on public streets and municipal land, and recover the cost from the encroacher.
2. The Supreme Court's foundation case is Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545. It held that public streets and pavements exist for the public's passage, and cannot be occupied so as to obstruct them — while also requiring due procedure before any occupier is removed. In practice: the structure can go; the process must be followed.
3. Courts since have repeatedly directed municipalities to act on encroachment — the legal duty is not in doubt. What fails is follow-through, which is precisely what an RTI measures.

1. Register it where your city registers complaints: the municipal helpline or app, the ward office, or a written complaint with a receiving stamp. Keep the number.
2. Describe the encroachment exactly — location, what occupies it, since roughly when, and which public purpose it blocks. Photographs attached make the file harder to bury.
3. Name the provision: ask for removal as an encroachment on public land and restoration of the space.

A complaint without a docket number does not exist. A complaint with one starts a paper trail the RTI below will walk.

To, The Public Information Officer,
[Municipal Corporation / Municipality]

Subject: Information under §6(1), RTI Act 2005 — encroachment complaint no. ____

Please provide:
1. The action taken on my complaint dated ____ regarding encroachment at [location].
2. The survey of that encroachment conducted — date, officer, and findings.
3. The removal notice issued to the occupier, its date, and the compliance deadline given.
4. If no notice was issued: the reason recorded.
5. The prescribed timeline for acting on encroachment complaints of this class, and my file's position against it.
6. The number of encroachment-removal actions carried out in this ward in the last year.

₹10 IPO enclosed.
[Name, address, signature, date]

Questions 1 to 5 push your file; question 6 puts your ward's record on paper, which is where corporators and commissioners start caring.

1. **Ward Engineer and Assistant Engineer**, in writing, quoting the complaint number.
2. **Zonal Deputy Commissioner or ward committee** — most cities route encroachment grievances here.
3. **Municipal Commissioner** — a formal representation attaching the unanswered complaint and the RTI reply.
4. **RTI first appeal** within 30 days of a weak reply; second appeal to the **State Information Commission** within 90 days.
5. **High Court writ** for persistent inaction — municipalities have been repeatedly directed to frame and execute removal programmes; your complaint trail is the evidence of inaction.
6. Where the encroacher is influential and officials stall, a complaint to the **Lokayukta** about the inaction belongs on the table.

Two cautions. Do not demolish anything yourself — self-help removal invites criminal cases against you. And do not accept “the occupier is poor” as a reason a footpath stays blocked; the law requires removal with procedure, not abandonment of public space.

Real example. Kashvi Pathak's street in Belagavi lost its footpath to a wholesale store's ramp. Three app complaints closed as “verified, no encroachment”. An RTI asking for the survey officer, the survey findings and the notice issued returned the truth: no survey had ever been conducted. The ward committee ordered one the same month; the ramp came down to the original line.

Yes. Public land belongs to all residents; any citizen can complain and follow up.

Use the RTI above — asking for the survey findings and the notice issued exposes a closure without groundwork.

No. Only the municipal authority can, after notice and procedure. Self-help exposes you to prosecution.

Your state's municipal Act for municipal land; the Supreme Court's Olga Tellis line of cases for streets and pavements.

It works on the file — surveys, notices, deadlines. Those records are what force the physical removal.

• Olga Tellis v Bombay Municipal Corporation, (1985) 3 SCC 545
• State municipal Acts — encroachment removal powers and cost recovery
• RTI Act 2005, §6, §7, §19

• Civil and family law — citizen guides
• Consumer court — how to file
• CPGRAMS grievance stuck — escalate with RTI
• File RTI online — 12 steps
• The RTI Playbook