The top court in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh has dismissed an appeal by the Christian community to allot a piece of barren public land for a cemetery, citing legal restrictions. Source: UCA News.
The Allahabad High Court bench of noted on Monday that it recognised the community’s right to religious freedom, but this does not grant it the right to demand a specific piece of land from the government for a cemetery.
The court noted that converting land entrusted to a local body into a public utility like a graveyard was “an executive decision” based on various factors. The authorities could consider such a request in the larger public interest if there was a shortage of space, it added.
The court order came in response to a petition filed by the Christian Community Welfare Society after the Ghaziabad district magistrate rejected its appeal on January 7 for allotting land for a cemetery, citing a shortage of space for Christian burials.
It sought 0.3420 hectares of barren land in Visokhar village in Modi Nagar sub-district. However, the land was not reserved to serve as a burial ground, prompting the society to approach the district authorities.
Vinaya Kumar Paul, the president of the society, said: “There was no objection from anybody to allotting the barren land for Christians.”
But both the magistrate — the top government official in the district — and the court noted the land was indeed barren but did not approve the request for getting the land converted to a Christian cemetery.
The district magistrate delegated his authority to an additional district magistrate who prepared an adverse report with a communal angle, and the court accepted it, leading to denial of burial ground to Christians, people familiar with the case alleged.
“The court order appears more of a legal stickler rather than addressing the larger social and religious requirements of a community,” Divine Word priest Babu Joseph, former spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, said.
“The point in the whole appeal of the Christian society was to allot a barren land for conducting their burial services since they have run short of space in the current location, and that is legitimate as in the case of any community,” said the priest, based in the national capital, New Delhi.
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Indian court denies government land for Christian cemetery (UCA News)
