On 23rd January, the Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition demanding the removal of a temple at Yashwant Niwas Road, Indore. The bench stated that the petitioner did not have any specific reason for seeking the removal of the temple. Imposing the cost of Rs 25000 on the petitioner who claimed to be a journalist, the court stated that the applicant had a vested interest in the premises following which he made such a plea.
The court also said that if the litigant was so very concerned about the construction of illegal religious structures on government land, he should have taken measures to challenge all such illegal structures.
“The petitioner is not a resident of nearby places of Yashwant Niwas. He has not disclosed as to why he is only targeting one temple at Yashwant Niwas Road in public interest. Being a Journalist, he ought to have conducted a survey in Indore or Madhya Pradesh about all the illegal constructions before filing this PIL. Therefore, such a petition cannot be treated as Public Interest Litigation when the petitioner is interested only in one temple. It appears that he has some vested interest in it. We do not find any mistake apparent on the face of the record in the order passed by the Division Bench to exercise the power of review,” the division bench of Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Gajendra Singh observed.
Earlier a PIL was filed by the petitioner which was also dismissed by the High Court saying that the petitioner was not a social worker to invoke the public interest writ petition.
While reviewing the circumstances of the case, the court noted that the petitioner claimed to be a journalist and sought the removal of a specific temple. In the process, he listed 25 respondents, 20 of whom are the president and trustees of the Manmohan Parshavanath Jain Shwetamber Mandir Evam Guru Mandir Trust.
“If petitioner is aggrieved by illegal construction of religious places, then he ought to have challenged all the religious structures constructed either on government land or without permission,” the court said.
“In the present case the petitioner has not been able to point out any error apparent on the face of the record, on the contrary this Court has decided the case on merits,” it added imposing a fine of Rs 25000 on the review petitioner.
