Supreme Court warns states on unauthorised places of worship

The Supreme Court (SC) asked all states on Tuesday to comply with its directions to remove or relocate unauthorised places of worship in public places. It warned that chief secretaries of states which fail to comply would have to personally appear before it.
A bench headed by justice Dalveer Bhandari also granted two weeks’ time to the states to file their responses on the issue.

The apex court was furious after noting that despite several hearings, many states had not filed affidavits and compliance reports. The bench had earlier asked the states and Union Territories (UTs) to ensure that no unauthorised temple, mosque, churches, gurudwaras and other places of worship were allowed to exist on roads, pavements or on other public places as they were causing traffic snarls, congestions and inconvenience to people.

During several rounds of hearing, the Centre, the states and UTs had orally informed the bench that they were willing to comply with the orders of the apex court as the respective governments were also keen on clearing public places of such unauthorised constructions.
However, many states were yet to file any compliance reports in pursuant to the assurances, inviting the wrath of the top court.