The court said state has failed in removing shrines even when it claimed in 2015 that it would demolish them by May this year; govt has sought time till December
The Bombay High Court came down hard on the state government yesterday on the issue of illegal shrines. It said that the state has failed in demolishing the shrines even when it had claimed that it could demolish the illegal structures by May 2016 in a government resolution (GR) last year.
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The HC had in March 2015 directed the civic authorities to demolish all the illegal shrines that had come up in Maharashtra post 2009.
Complete failure
“Were there only four illegal shrines constructed after September 29, 2009, the cut off date given by Supreme Court?” questioned the bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice Amjad Sayed. The court said the demolition figures were not even one fourth of the total number of illegal structures and said, “It is a complete failure on the part of the state government that had earlier claimed that it could demolish all illegal structures by May 2016.” The court was hearing a bunch of PILs filed by social activist Bhagwanji Riyani and NGOS, including ‘Society for Fast Justice.’
State seeks December deadline
Abhinandan Vagyani, the state’s pleader even tried to convince the bench by giving in writing that by December 2016 all illegal shrines in the state could be demolished, but the bench was not happy and asked the state to work on the matter and revert on Wednesday. Following a Supreme Court order, the state had issued a GR on May 5, 2011, containing a scheme, prescribing action regarding unauthorised religious structures in terms of regularisation, relocation or removal.
In November 2015, it came up with another GR declaring action against all illegal shrines. The GR had directions to all municipal corporations and collectorates to demolish all illegal shrines built after September 29, 2009.
‘Cops delayed process’
Meanwhile, the state also told the bench that the process of demolishing illegal shrines was delayed as several officers of the collectorate and police were busy tackling the drought situation in the state. They were dealing with the shortage of water in state and so could not look into the issue of illegal shrines.
The state said there were around 847 illegal structures in collectorate areas of which around 159 were demolished, while corporation areas had around 14,519 illegal shrines of which around 2,138 had been regularised by the corporation, while they demolished 120. The state has 49,849 illegal shrines constructed before September 29, 2009.
Dealing with illegal shrines
>> The state government had formed a schedule to deal with illegal shrines built before the September 29, 2009 deadline set by Supreme Court.
>> It gave six months for regularisation of the structures, six to nine months to shift the structure that interfered with traffic and nine months to demolish a shrine built post the deadline.
49,849
Illegal shrines in Maharashtra
221
Shrines regularised by BMC
11
Shrines demolished by BMC
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