SC grants time to centre to respond to pleas challenging Places of Worship Act

The Supreme Court granted more time to the Centre to respond to the batch of challenging certain petitions SC grants Centre more time to respond to pleas challenging Places of Worship Act 1991.

“I need to consult with the government for filing a detailed counter,” Mehta said.

The pleas challenged the Places of Worship Act saying that the act deprives the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to restore their ‘places of worship and pilgrimages’, destroyed by invaders.

The Places of Worship Act 1991 is void and unconstitutional for many reasons, the plea said, adding that it offends the right of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to pray, profess, practice and prorogate religion (Article 25), the petitions said. The Act infringes on the rights of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to manage maintain and administer the places of worship and pilgrimage (Article 26), the pleas added.

“It is respectfully submitted that the Central Government by making impugned provision (Places of Worship Act 1991) in the year of 1991 has created arbitrary irrational retrospective cutoff date, declared that character of places of worship and pilgrimage shall be maintained as it was on August 15, 1947, and no suit or proceeding shall lie in the court in respect of the dispute against encroachment done by barbaric fundamentalist invaders and such proceeding shall stand abated,” the PILs stated.

The Act deprives Hindus, Jains Buddhists, and Sikhs of owning/acquiring religious properties belonging to the deity (misappropriated by other communities). It also takes away the right of judicial remedy of Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs to take back their places of worship and pilgrimage and the property which belong to deity, stated the pleas.