The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed all states to monitor the construction of religious structures on public land, saying this has emerged as a “gigantic” problem as huge chunk of government land is being encroached upon with such structures across the country.
Issuing separate directions to each state to follow the mechanism laid down by the top court in its September 29, 2009 order, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma directed states to file affidavits furnishing separate data on total number of the religious places coming up on public land in recent times, how many of them removed and regularised.
The states were directed to submit the affidavits within four weeks after the bench found the details furnished by Madhya Pradesh more pragmatic as it had given full details about total number of religious places — ancient and new — and those coming up illegally on public land in recent times, those removed and regularised.
As per the July 22 affidavit of Madhya Pradesh, the state had a total of 51,620 religious places in the state, of which 572 were built by encroaching public land during last few years.