Cuttack: More than 19,000 religious structures across Odisha will come up for fresh inspection to decide which of them "is required to be removed" and which "can be regularised" following an order of the Supreme Court on February 6.
The Supreme Court passed the order while adjudicating petitions about unauthorised religious structures across the country.
The case had its beginning with the Supreme Court issuing an interim order on September 29, 2009, directing that "henceforth, no unauthorised construction shall be carried out or permitted in the name of temple, church, mosque, gurudwara, etc on public streets, public parks or other public places".
In respect of the unauthorised construction of religious nature that has already taken place, the state governments and the Union territories are supposed to review the same on case-to-case basis and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible.
The states and Union territories were expected to submit reports related to unauthorised construction of religious nature that had come up before September 29, 2009.
Odisha government had subsequently informed the Supreme Court that it had formulated a policy for taking appropriate steps with regard to unauthorised religious constructions. The state had made a survey and gone ahead with demolition till the Supreme Court issued a stay order on May 31, 2013, following filing of some petitions by some temple authorities.
"According to the affidavit submitted by the Odisha government, 20,231 unauthorised religious structures had been identified in the state and by the time the stay order was issued, 947 of them had been demolished," said Prasanna Nanda, the counsel for nine temples in Cuttack city.
"With the Supreme Court's final order on all the petitions on February 6, the state government will have to now decide the fate of 19,384 unauthorised religious structures in the state within three months," Nanda said.
Pertaining to Odisha, the Supremee Court in its February 6 order said: "Orissa has framed a policy dated 27.03.2010. Under the said policy, (a) committee has been constituted. The committee has to take into consideration the individual cases and take a call which structure is required to be removed and which can be regularised".
