Plea rejected, Sanjauli residents not to be party in mosque case
The District Court today rejected the application of Sanjauli residents, who had appealed to the court for permission to become party in the ongoing mosque dispute.
The locals had urged the court to allow them to become the third party in the case but during hearing, their application was rejected.
Advocate Jagat Pal, who was representing the locals, said that the court had directed that they submitted a 25-page argument before it. “The involvement of local residents in the case may not have a significant impact but we nonetheless submitted our position to the court,” he added.
He said that the case that was going on in the Municipal Commissioner’s Court was related to illegal construction and the matter was between the authority and the violator i.e. between the Municipal Corporation of Shimla and the Himachal Pradesh Waqf Baord. “Any construction within the areas under the jurisdiction of the Shimla Municipal Corporation requires its approval. However, the Waqf Board did not seek permission for the construction in question” he added.
Meanwhile, the All Himachal Muslim Association sought additional time from the court for presenting its argument. Advocate Vishwa Bhushan, who is representing the All Himachal Muslim Association, said that the mosque had been constructed on land owned by the Waqf Board and not on government land. “Muhammad Latif, who had offered to demolish the floors of the mosque, is not authorised to do so, therefore, we challenged this decision of the Municipal Commissioner’s Court,” he added.
He said that Nazakat Ali Hashmi had nothing to do with the mosque and he along with his association only wanted to spread communal tension. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for November 18.
On October 5, the Commissioner’s Court had directed that the top three floors of the five-storey mosque located in Sanjauli be razed. The court had granted two months for razing the floors. However, the All Himachal Muslim Association objected to the decision and approached the district court, seeking stay on the Commissioner’s Court decision.
