Amicus Curiae appointed for PIL on illegal religious structures

Bengaluru: The High Court of Karnataka has appointed senior advocate Vikram Huilagol as amicus curiae in the public interest litigation (PIL) it has initiated against illegal religious structures on public land.

The division bench of Chief Justice Prasanna B Varale and Justice Ashok S Kinagi heard the PIL on Wednesday. It took cognisance of the case after a Supreme Court direction to remove all unauthorised religious structures from public properties.

The State had submitted an affidavit before the court stating that 1,563 unauthorised religious structures have been removed so far. Another 457 have been retained and 48 of them have been relocated. Only 17 structures have been regularised.

The HC noted that a large number of interim applications have been filed in the PIL and each one had to be studied. It directed the Amicus Curiae to prepare a new list of the unauthorised structures taking into account the structures that the State has dropped from its initial list.

The State was directed to provide all relevant documents to the Amicus Curiae and the matter was adjourned by three weeks.

The Supreme Court through an order on September 29, 2009 directed removal of all unauthorised religious structures from public places.

Following this, the HC in its order on September 5, 2019 directed the State to submit its action-taken-report on the SC order. The State has been submitting updated reports at regular intervals.