“Courts are no more concerned about who or in what name encroachments take place. We have reached a situation where even if God encroaches upon a public space, the courts will direct the removal of such encroachments, since public interest and rule of law must be safeguarded and upheld,” the Madras High Court observed on Friday.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh wrote that there was a time when some individuals had developed an impression that they could encroach upon a public space in the name of a temple or by planting an idol. Now, the courts could not be hoodwinked by [those] encroaching [on] public properties and constructing a temple in the name of God, he said.
“We have enough temples, and no God has made any request to construct new temples by encroaching upon public spaces or by raising a structure in the name of the temple,” the judge said while dismissing, with costs, a second appeal filed in 2013 by the Palapattarai Mariamman temple, situated in the Namakkal Municipality.
The judge found the temple to have encroached upon a public street named Mariamman Koil Street and put up constructions, thereby preventing access for adjacent landowners, who had been fighting a legal battle since 2005 by filing a suit before a munsif court, followed by a first appeal before a district court.
He was surprised to find that during the course of the litigation before the lower courts, the Municipality, which was supposed to be the custodian of public streets, did a volte-face and supported the temple.
“It is quite unfortunate that the Municipality virtually attempted to wash off its hands [sic] by blindly supporting a flagrant encroachment made by the temple. This sudden change of stand was probably due to some official who was handling the case by wrongly understanding the term ‘God-fearing’,” the judge remarked.
Criticising the temple for having put up constructions on the public street despite an order of status quo, the judge directed it to demolish the constructions within two months. In case of a failure to do so, the Municipality was directed to remove the illegal structures and ensure free public access to the street.
“The photographs produced before this court show that the plaintiffs (adjacent landowners) have been completely prevented from having any access to the public street from their property. They have to be literally air-dropped into their property. The conduct of the first defendant temple is highly condemnable,” he added.
Justice Venkatesh stated that even assuming that the plaintiffs had alternate access to their property, “that does not mean that the plaintiffs can be deprived of their right to use a public street for ingress and egress to their property. It is not necessary for the plaintiffs to prove that this street is the only access to their property”.
