On Friday, September 25, 2026, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) informed the Delhi High Court that 543 buildings have been demolished, 178 buildings sealed, and 354 show cause notices issued against unauthorized constructions during an 17-day drive against unauthorized constructions.
This drive was conducted from September 6 to September 23. These developments were stated in an affidavit by MCD Executive Engineer (Building) Headquarters, Ajay Kumar Jain, on September 24. This drive came in wake of the collapse of a paying guest (PG) building at Satya Niketan, which caused the death of seven people on September 6.
An affidavit was filed in reply to the direction issued by the High Court itself on September 7 wherein MCD had been directed to look into the permission and sanction aspect of the buildings involved in the collapse incident, hold those responsible who committed violation, and conduct inspection of PG hostels under its jurisdiction.
The High Court is hearing an individual Public Interest Litigation by Aniket Kumar Gupta for compensation of ₹1 crore for the families of victims and a structural audit of all PG accommodations and hostels in the city.
Aside from the 543 demolitions and 178 sealings, MCD added that they also sent 205 notices for show cause sealings and 98 demolition notices during the period.
The matter was heard by a Bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia on Friday, where the court asked the legality of the operation of the PGs around the city because most of them do not conform to the master plan as per the submissions of MCD.
After the disaster, MCD conducted an extensive survey of about 300 properties in Satya Niketan and discovered that PG accommodation was functioning in 101 of these properties.
Three properties in the vicinity had been marked as hazardous, and notices had been put up by the MCD under section 348 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957. The owners and occupiers of these properties challenged the notices in the High Court; although the notices had been stayed, the court ordered that PG accommodation cannot run from these properties until they are certified as structurally sound. The PG accommodations in these three properties were vacated.
The MCD has also marked 10 other properties in the vicinity as vulnerable and needing major repairs, seven of which have load-bearing structural problems, according to the affidavit.
In an important portion of the affidavit, MCD stated that there had been no complaints regarding the collapsed building from January 1, 2026, and there were no records of any unauthorized construction bookings made.
The municipal corporation added that there was no ongoing construction activity in the vicinity of the collapsed building on that day, but the owner had done some renovations and repairs in recent times. According to MCD, it was impossible to ascertain the cause of the collapsed building, but the municipal corporation believed that the rains had made the building weak because of its age.
The MCD has informed the court that steps have been taken to punish the people internally. "Five officers of the supervisory hierarchy involved in the concerned collapse have also been suspended."
"In this regard, it may be noted that the senior-most officers involved with the concerned zonal and building administration have also been suspended, which includes the Deputy Commissioner of the concerned zone and the Superintending Engineer / South Zone who is the senior-most officer in the building hierarchy of the concerned level," read the MCD's affidavit.
The affidavit further revealed statistics related to the number of buildings in the paying guest segment of the city in general. As per MCD, there are 2,453 PG buildings in operation in Delhi, containing 32,247 rooms, which house 50,529 individuals.
However, out of this total, only 512 buildings are in accordance with the master plan of the city, as per the admission of the civic body itself, thus raising questions about the majority of the PG buildings in Delhi not following zoning regulations and building codes.
It seems likely that the Delhi High Court will continue to ensure compliance of MCD with the directives issued by the court on September 7, including inspection of PG hostels across the city and checking out the amount of compensation claimed in the pending PIL case.
Only a small portion of PG hostels in the city have been found compliant with the master plan, which makes it probable that the MCD might take further enforcement measures after the present drive of 17 days.
