JOIN USModi govt told to pay up for razed mosques
The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday delivered a blow to the Narendra Modi government, ordering that it pay compensation for more than 500 religious structures that were destroyed in the course of the 2002 riots.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and J B Pardiwala pulled up the state government, holding “that for the inability or negligence on the part of the state administration, the religious and other places of worship in this state” were destroyed. The order followed a 2003 petition by the Islamic Relief Committee (IRC) which had moved court seeking compensation for the religious structures destroyed during the communal conflagration in 2002.
The state government had maintained that there was no provision in law to provide for compensation to destroyed religious structures. To this, the court maintained that “the policy adopted by the state government, not to spend money from the public exchequer for the restoration of the religious paces which were destroyed during the period, but restricting the compensation only to places of residence and businesses, is violative of the fundamental right.”
While observing that many of the destroyed structures were repaired over the years, the court ordered that those in charge of the vandalised structures would now be entitled to reimbursement of the amount spent on restoration by production of evidence of expenditure incurred by them.
The court appointed all principal district judges across the state as special officers to decide on the quantum of compensation payable to the places of worship within their jurisdiction. Reacting to the order, petitioner Shakeel Ahmed said: “The bench said that it was a matter of human rights and not of rules and since the state government had failed to protect human rights, it has to provide compensation.”
Reserving strong words for the state government, the court said, “Failure on the part of the police intelligence to gather such general reaction in time and to take appropriate timely action definitely comes within the expression ‘negligence of the state’ even if we, for the sake of argument, accept the defence of the state that the cause of riot was general reaction from the incident of Sabarmati Express”.
Sanjiv Bhatt’s reaction
Two Karnataka BJP Ministers caught watching porn on mobile both had to resign. An entire BJP Government led by Narendra Modi, orchestrates a pogrom in which innocent women and young girls are raped and killed in full public view. Gory acts of perversion are even filmed with nationalistic pride... Nobody had to resign. Moral: It is alright to rape, kill and indulge in acts of perversion...but you should not watch acts of perversion on mobile.