Is it justified for a secular government to part with acres of public land for construction of religious places of worship?
This is the question Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar on Friday agreed to address when he directed the Supreme Court Registry to place all pending cases in the court regarding grant of public lands for the construction of religious places of worship, be it temples, mosques, churches, gurudwaras, synagogues, etc.
“We do not want to hear this issue piecemeal, let all the petitions pending in the court be tagged together and we will hear them all. Like that, everybody will be satisfied and that will be the better way,” Chief Justice Khehar said. The Supreme Court Registry has time till March 20 to identify all such cases, group them together and present them for hearing before the Chief Justice’s Bench.
Chennai case
The direction came on a petition filed by the Federation of Chennai Suburban (South) Welfare Association against the Muslim Cultural Association in 2008. The case refers to a government order of September 24, 1986, provisionally transferring a government pond in favour of the Muslim Association for constructing a mosque.
The Federation contended that the government order violated the basic feature of the Constitution, namely — secularism. The Federation, represented by senior advocate R. Basant and advocate G. Balaji, invoked the 1994 S.R. Bommai case in which the Supreme Court had held that the “Constitution prevents the State from either identifying itself with or favouring any particular religion or religious sect or denomination”.
