The Supreme Court on Friday barred the Gujarat government from allotting a parcel of land in Gir Somnath district, where Muslim religious sites and residences were demolished allegedly illegally last month, to any third party until further orders, reported The Hindu.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and KV Viswanathan also refused to order status quo on the demolition drive after Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the state government, assured the court that the land would remain with it and not be given to a third party.
“In this light, we don’t find necessary that any interim order be passed,” the court said, according to Bar and Bench. The bench was hearing a special leave petition filed by the Auliya-E-Deen Committee against a Gujarat High Court order from October 3 that refused to order status quo on the demolition drive.
On September 28, the district authorities demolished nine mosques and shrines in addition to several homes in the Prabhas Patan area near the Somnath temple, allegedly under the pretext of removing encroachments from government land.
Subsequently, a contempt petition was filed by another petitioner, the Summast Patni Muslim Jamat, a trust representing the Patni Muslim community in Prabhas Patan, claiming that the district authorities had illegally bulldozed the Muslim religious sites and residences.
On October 4, the Supreme Court refused to stay the demolition drive.
At the hearing on Friday, Advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the Auliya-E-Deen Committee, said that the land, dating back to 1903, was previously registered in its name, according to Bar and Bench.
The demolitions were carried out in a “high-handed manner” without proper regard for the legal and historical status of the land, Sibal told the top court, adding that the land was also registered under the 2013 Waqf Act.
A waqf is a property given for a religious, educational or charitable cause by Muslims. In India, waqfs are governed under the Waqf Act. Each state has a Waqf Board that is empowered to acquire, hold and transfer such property.
Sibal asked the bench how the state government could proceed with the drive without resolving the ownership of the land.
Sibal also claimed that the authorities had spared Hindu temples situated on the land and only targeted the Muslim-owned structures, The Indian Express reported.
On September 17, the top court passed an interim order staying demolitions across the country without its permission till October 1.
This came on a batch of petitions challenging “bulldozer action”, or punitive demolitions, by state governments. The court, however, clarified that this directive did not apply to unauthorised constructions on public roads, footpaths, railway lines, public places or water bodies.
“The reason given for demolition [in Gir Somnath] is that they [the religious sites and homes] are near the Arabian Sea and therefore, near a water body,” he said. “Protected monuments were razed to the ground. Can your Lordships imagine?”
In response, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta submitted documents indicating that the Somnath temple trust was currently in possession of the land and described Sibal’s claims about the ownership as misleading, Bar and Bench reported.
The state government had the legal right to remove the “illegal constructions”, Mehta said.
The bench directed that the land should remain with the state government till the next hearing on November 11, according to The Hindu. It also said that the proceedings pending in the High Court would continue.
There are no provisions in Indian law that allow for the demolition of property as a punitive measure. Nevertheless, the practice has become commonplace mainly in states ruled by the BJP.
Authorities in four Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states and one Aam Aadmi Party-governed state punitively bulldozed 128 structures, mostly belonging to Muslims, between April 2022 and June 2022, human rights group Amnesty International said in a report in February.
Also read:
- In rare instance of compensation after demolition, Assam families still struggling
- ‘We deserve compensation’: Why victim of UP ‘bulldozer raj’ wants the Supreme Court to do more
- In Udaipur, one home razed, three families punished for a Muslim teenager’s crime
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