CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Monday took stock of the current status of unauthorised constructions of religious nature on public land and sought a fresh affidavit from the State government. The High Court had registered a suo motu case on February 24, 2020 with a cause title ‘removal of unauthorised religious structures on public land’ following a Supreme Court order.
In pursuance of the order that the court issued on December 8, 2021, the Chief Secretary had filed an affidavit on April 8. It indicated the status of unauthorised religious structures on public land on the basis of reports received from the districts by March 31.
The affidavit said action was taken in the case of 13,282 of the 18,621 unauthorised constructions of religious nature in the State. And 5,339 such structures remain to be acted upon and the process is underway.
The Supreme Court had directed the states and union territories to identify and demolish unauthorised constructions of religious nature which had come up after September 29, 2009. The high courts were expected to supervise the implementation of the order. The State government had constituted committees at the district-level to take a call on which structure is required to be removed or relocated or regularised.
The affidavit placed before the court said 10,738 such constructions were regularised, 1,982 removed and another 562 relocated so far. Regularisation was processed in the cases where the encroachments do not cause traffic, public nuisance or inconvenience.
The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice RK Pattanaik observed that though the affidavit stated that action was taken in the case of 139 religious structures between December 8, 2021 and March 31, it did not indicate how many of them were regularised, removed or relocated. The bench fixed August 22 as the next date for taking stock of the progress.
Free public land
Unauthorised constructions 18,621
Action taken against 13,282
Supreme Court had directed the states and union territories to identify and demolish unauthorised constructions of religious nature which had come up after September 29, 2009