Delhi HC dismisses plea against installation of Rani of Jhansi statue inside Shahi Idgah Park

The petitioners had moved the Delhi High Court aft a JCB was brought to excavation up 1 of the parks adjoining the Shahi Idgah connected August 29. According to the petitioners, the digging was being done astatine the behest of DDA and MCD “trying to encroach upon the said parkland and readying to instal a statue of Maharani of Jhansi”.

The tribunal of Justice Dharmesh Sharma, relying connected Delhi Waqf Board’s submissions, held that the surrounding country wrong the Idgah boundary, which are the parks/open ground, belongs to the DDA and that the committee’s assertion that the full spot wrong the Idgah’s walls is the spot of Shahi Idgah “cannot beryllium sustained successful law”.

Noting that the unfastened country of the parkland has been maintained by Horticultural Division-II of the DDA, which is liable for ensuring that the tract is utilized by nationalist visitors for recreational purposes, the tribunal went connected to record, “The bottommost enactment is that, since the parks/open crushed adjoining the Shahi Idgah and located wrong the Idgah walls are the spot of responsive No.1/DDA, it is solely the DDA’s work to allocate portions of the said onshore for nationalist usage arsenic it deems fit….It would not (be) retired of spot to observe that the existent bony of contention seems to beryllium the installation of the statute of the Maharani of Jhansi astatine the interior country conception of the spot successful question…”.

“Although apprehension has been expressed that the installation of the statue astatine the tract mightiness make a law-and-order situation, inasmuch arsenic a determination has already been taken by the Standing Committee of the MCD to relocate the statute astatine the aforesaid site, this tribunal cannot spell into the contented of administrative contented of the MCD successful the implementation of specified a resolution…,” it further said.

“Even assuming for the involvement of convenience that the petitioner/committee has locus standi to similar the instant writ petition, this tribunal does not spot arsenic to however their close to connection prayers oregon to execute immoderate spiritual rights is being endangered successful immoderate manner…That being the case, the petitioner has nary ineligible oregon cardinal close to reason the attraction and upkeep of the parks/open crushed surrounding the Shahi Idgah, by…DDA and thereby reason the installation of the statue by…MCD astatine its behest,” the tribunal concluded.