When there are no burial sites in Mumbai, the Bombay High Court questioned the Maharashtra government on the rationale of providing permission for the building of skyscrapers.
Bombay High Court hearing
An individual named Mohammed Furqan Qureshi filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) asking for a separate burial place for Sunni Muslims. The PIL was being heard by the bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Madhav Jamdar.
Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, the advocate general for Maharashtra, said the court at the hearing on Monday that the Chief Minister has decided to grant Hindus, Muslims, and Christians access to 3,000 square metres of property in the Bandra area.
Kumbhakoni requested a two-week postponement, but claimed that no communication to that effect had yet been provided.
“What is the use of skyscrapers when there is no room for this (burial grounds)”
Chief Justice Datta said upon hearing this. You keep approving the construction of large buildings and inviting people to Mumbai, yet these necessary amenities remain lacking. The court did, however, schedule a second hearing for the PIL after two weeks.
The petitioner has included data on the number of Sunni Muslims in the ward’s Bandra (West) and Khar (West) neighbourhoods as well as the number of fatalities reported by the corporation that he was able to collect under the Right to Information Act.
The petitioner turned to the high court after making many appeals to different city officials and even submitting complaints and proposals for reserving appropriate spaces for the cemetery in the draught development plan were greeted with resistance. The petitioner had sought for instructions to be given to the authorities to set aside a block of land in the ward, comprising at least one hectare, as a Sunni Muslim cemetery.
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