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Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission has submitted a draft bill to the state government for curbing the menace of construction of religious structures at public places.
The draft bill recommending three years imprisonment and fine was submitted to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday. Similar legislations have already been passed by the state assemblies of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
The bill is named UP Regulation of Public Religious Structure (On Public Places) Bill, 2021.
The report along with the draft bill says that there has been a spurt in tendency to encroach public land by constructing temples, mosques, mausoleums and other religious structures, obstructing the movement of traffic. It says that after encroachment, more nearby land is occupied.
The State Law Commission has prepared the draft bill after studying the judgements of the Supreme Court and the High Courts of MP, Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. The State Law Commission has also suggested that the public places used for muharram and festivals like Holi should not be treated as encroachment of public places for religious purposes.
The Supreme Court, in a judgement in 2009, had directed the state governments to take action by removing such religious places on public land. Later, the Allahabad High Court on June 3, 2016, had directed the state government to clear all such encroachments on highways, public roads, streets, footpaths, roadside lanes, etc.
The state government on March 10, this month issued an order directing all the district magistrates to remove all such encroachments.
The State Law Commission has suggested action in three categories to remove the encroached shrines in its format. Under this, it has been recommended to regularise those religious places built before a specified date. Such religious places can also be shifted to another place. Apart from this, there may be a system of reducing the total area occupied by the religious places. That is, the part of a religious place which is obstructing the traffic should be removed and the remaining part should be regularized, while the encroached religious places after a specified date should be removed.