The state government earned the wrath of the Gujarat High Court on Wednesday for not framing a policy for awarding compensation to the riot-torn religious places. Coming down heavily for its lackadaisical approach to the issue, a bench of acting chief justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and justice JB Pardiwala rapped the state government for dragging its feet on this matter while it has already compensated the victims and the injured and has also given monetary relief for damages done to residential and commercial property.
The bench observed, "The policy of the state government taken in defence is one of evading the constitutional responsibility and will bring anarchy in the society, and thus, is detrimental to the establishment of the principles and the tenets of our Constitution."
Ordering the state to compensate the administrators or trustees of the religious places, the bench said, “We are left with no alternative, but to conclude it is the duty of the state government to restore all religious places, irrespective of religion, as they existed at the time of destruction. If those are already restored, it should compensate persons in charge of those places of worship by reimbursing the amount already spent by them."
In another stringent remark, the court said, "The above policy [the policy not to compensate religious places] rather would give a wrong signal to the citizens that for the protection of the religious places, including those of worship, from the attack of the ruffians, they should take up arms in their own hand because in the event of destruction of those places, no financial help will come from the government.
The court further added that the "above policy will also encourage religious bigots to destroy religious and other places of worship of economically weaker section of the other community, for the purpose of establishing their superiority." The court fears that the perpetrators will do so since they know that economically weaker communities will never be able to reconstruct these destroyed structures from their own meagre resources.
Holding its opinion that the state government policy 'is violative of the fundamental right guaranteed under Articles 14, 25 and 26 of the Constitution', the bench, after going through the entire matter, held the state administration's 'inability or negligence' responsible for the destruction and damages done to religious and other places of worships in the state during 2002 riots.
The bench was hearing a petition filed by Islamic Relief Committee of Gujarat (IRCG) in 2003 seeking compensation to 572-odd religious places, mostly belonging to minority community, damaged or destructed during 2002 riots. IRCG's counsels Yousuf Muchchala, MTM Hakim and MA Kharadi argued that government should compensate trustees and administrators of the religious places as it had failed to protect them during the riots. "The government did not release any compensation even after recommendations of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and didn't table the report before the assembly," said Hakim.
"We had put the Supreme Court judgment over the Kandhmal massacre in Odisha wherein the state had to give compensation for destruction of religious places," the lawyer said adding, "500 out of 595 religious places destructed or damaged belong to minority community." While taking note of NHRC report, the court held that the state’s reason for not putting report in the assembly was 'not satisfactory'. The bench appointed principal district judges of all districts as special officers.
The court said the administrators of damaged or demolished religious places will have to approach them with evidence of claims for damage or reconstruction within a month. Appointed special officers have to clear these claims within six months and after that within 15 days they have to approach the high court. The division bench has kept pending the
final judgment.
