Mumbai Christians win fight for burial grounds

The top court in India’s commercial capital Mumbai (formerly Bombay) has restrained a suburban civic body from converting designated burial grounds for other purposes.

The Bombay High Court in western Maharashtra state on July 19 asked the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) “not to use the land designated as a burial ground in the city development plan for any other purpose.”

The court order came in a plea filed by a group of Christians in the city. 

“It is a major victory for the Christians who live in the suburban civic body limits,” said Melwyn Fernandes, the lead petitioner in the case.

Fernandes, a christian activist, told  on July 21 that the local Christian community has been facing a severe shortage of burial grounds after many of its designated cemeteries "were encroached on by builders and influential people with the backing of politicians.” 

Land is very expensive in Mumbai and the city and its suburbs are prone to illegal encroachments by land sharks. 

The megacity of some 21 million people on the coast of the Arabian Sea houses the most expensive real estate projects in the country and attracts millions of immigrants from across the nation. 

“I filed an application under the Right to Information Act, a special law empowering citizens to seek information from the government, to get details of burial grounds meant for Christians,” Fernandes said.

The civic body shared details of 10 plots but was not ready to hand over them to the Christian community as they were already encroached on by illegal squatters and businesses.

“Thus, we had to approach the high court,” Fernandes added.

During the hearing, the civic body listed 19 plots designated as burial grounds for all religious communities. However, the TMC said that some of them were not in its possession, and were occupied by structures and slums. It, however, did not name the encroachments on the burial grounds.

The division bench of acting Chief Justice Nitin Jamdar and Justice Arif S Doctor disagreed with the TMC, and said, “We find that these disclosures are not satisfactory.”

“Once the plots are designated as burial grounds in the development plan, they cannot be put to any other use other than the one designated,” ordered the court.