Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday pulled up the Maharashtra government for demolishing around 70 structures in the Vishalgadh fort area in Kolhapur where communal violence broke out between two groups on July 14. The court slammed the state government for carrying out the demolition process during the rainy season, which is against its own notification.
The court was hearing petitions related to the violence that broke out at the Vishalgad Fort in Kolhapur on Sunday (July 14). Maratha Royal and former member of Rajya Sabha, Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje Bhosale, along with hundreds of supporters had on Sunday staged a march to the fort where he had given a public call to end encroachments. Before he could reach the fort, a group of miscreants vandalised the shops, threw stones and attacked policemen on duty.
The next day, Kolhapur district administration started removing encroachments from Vishalgad Fort area.
Coming down heavily on the state government, a division bench of Justices B.P. Colabawalla and Firdosh Pooniwalla said authorities should not demolish any residential or commercial structures in the fort area from Friday.
The dispute regarding the alleged encroachments at the fort are already pending before the high court. The affected locals had approached the high court last year against the Maharashtra Archaeology Department’s notices that directed seven people to demolish their structures within the fort area. In February last year, a high court bench stayed the notices and directed no coercive or demolition action against the said petitioners and the same was continued from time to time.
The issue resurfaced after Chhatrapati Sambhajiraje gave the call for march against encroachments. He was appointed to Rajya Sabha by the BJP government. However, his father Chhatrapati Shahu is now Lok Sabha member from Congress party.
The petitioners claimed that “the right-wing activist led by Maratha Royal and former member of Rajya Sabha, Sambhaji Raje Chatrapati gathered at the base of Vishalgad Fort knowing fully well that prohibitory orders were issued by the Tehsildar, Shahuwadi”. They claimed the district administration had deployed police at the base of Fort to prevent “right-wing” activists from going to Vishalgad, but despite prohibitory orders the police allowed at least 100 protesters to climb the fort leading to “an atmosphere of chaos and lawlessness prevailed in the village for almost two hours”.
After watching a video shown by the petitioner related to the law and order situation at Vishalgad Fort, the bench asked, “Where is the law and order? These are not your (state police) officers, right? So who are these men? Are you not responsible for maintaining law and order in the State? We want to know if any FIR is lodged in this matter”.
The bench asked the senior inspector of the Shahuwadi Police Station to remain present before it on the next hearing to be held on July 29 and inform it about the action taken against those seen in the video.
