Author: Our Legal Reporter
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: July 6, 2004
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040706/asp/bengal/story_3459502.asp
The state and the Union civil aviation
ministry may have failed to relocate a mosque at Dum Dum airport to create
space for a second runway but the high court today asked the Waqf Board
to shift a mosque on National Highway 6 to widen the road.
"If for the purpose of development
a place of worship has to be shifted, then let it be done," Justice Barin
Ghosh told representatives of Hooghly district's Waqf Board. "This should
be done in the greater interest of the people."
The board had moved the high court
after the National Highway Authority of India issued a notice to the mosque
in Dankuni, about 30 km from the city, asking them to demolish it as it
came in the way of the Golden Quadrilateral project. The board pleaded
that the authority had no power to demolish a mosque for a road.
But the court said: "If you think
that the court will prevent the demolition by the highway authority, then
you are wrong in your thinking. The court will not prevent the NHAI from
doing its job."
The judge then asked the Waqf Board
representative to hold talks with the leaders of the community so that
a place could be found for the relocation of the mosque. "Any place of
worship can be shifted to any other place for greater interest of the society.
Development gets top priority," the judge said. He asked the petitioners
to request some rich person to donate three decimals of land near the mosque's
original location and to shift it there.
The court order assumes significance
as several roads in Calcutta like Biren Shasmal Road, CR Avenue, AJC Bose
Road and Syed Amir Ali Avenue cannot be expanded because of people's resistance
to demolition of places of worship.