NEW DELHI: A division bench on Monday delivered a split verdict on the controversy over the burial of a Christian tribal in Chhattisgarh, with one judge terming denial of burial in his village by local and state authorities as “hostile discrimination” on the basis of religion and allowed burial on his private land, and the other judge saying that a family cannot claim unqualified right to choose the place of burial and held that last rites must be performed at the place demarcated for the community, which is 20-25 km away from the village.
Taking note that the dead body was lying in mortuary for the past three weeks and making reference to larger bench or to the third judge would further delay his last rites, a bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma directed that the funeral be conducted at the burial ground demarcated for Christians in another village. The bench said that it was passing the order “bearing in mind judicial stewardship and to alleviate the predicament and suffering of the appellant and his family”.
The bench passed the order on the plea of the son who approached court to conduct the last rites in his native village which was not allowed by villagers. While Justice Nagarathna allowed his plea, Justice Sharma rejected his submission. Beginning her judgement by saying that death is a great leveller, Justice Nagarathna said this case demonstrates that the death of a resident of a village can also give rise to divisiveness and disapproved the conduct of the panchayat and state authorities for discriminating on the ground of religion and held “this is nothing but a violation of Article 14 and Article 15(1) of the Constitution which speak of equality before the law and the equal protection of the laws as well as places a strict prohibition of discrimination on the ground of religion, respectively”.
Justice Nagarathna took exception to the declaration of Bastar ASP, who had said, “Any person who has forsworn the tradition of the community or has converted into a Christian is not allowed to be buried at the village graveyard.” “Such an attitude on the part of local authorities, at the village level or higher level, indicates a betrayal of the sublime principles of secularism and the glorious traditions of our country which believes in ‘Sarva Dharma Samanvaya/Sarva Dharma Samabhava’, which is the essence of secularism,” she said.
Justice Sharma emphasised that no one can claim to have absolute and unqualified right to conduct last rites at the place of one’s choice and held that there was no need to invoke Article 142 to allow the plea of the petitioner.