Delhi HC comes to the rescue of idol makers

New Delhi: The Delhi high court on Monday directed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government and the local bodies to formulate a policy for allocating land for artisans who come here to make and sell their wares, including idols, during festivals.

A bench of acting chief justice Gita Mittal and justice C. Hari Shankar said the authorities, while coming out with such a plan, will have to consider providing temporary housing and sanitary facilities to these workers. It directed the urban development department principal secretary to hold a meeting with senior officials of municipal bodies to come up with a scheme.

The court also said the meeting's deliberations should be submitted to it on December 5, the next date of hearing. The bench also directed it to pay `2,500 as token damages to eight artisans who had suffered losses due to the SDMC's alleged demolition and confiscation of Ravana and other idols, which were set afire as part of Dussehra celebrations. The SDMC also allegedly demolished their temporary shelters.

The order came on a PIL initiated by the court on its own after it came across a news report saying several Ravana idols who came here from Rajasthan for Dussehra, were destroyed or confiscated by the SDMC for allegedly encroaching on public land.

The bench on the last date of hearing had observed that while the authorities permit construction of unauthorised buildings by the rich forcibly remove the poor by calling them encroachers. It had said that the authorities should have anticipated that the artisans would come here during Dussehra to make idols and ought to have made appropriate arrangements for them to work and stay.

Defending its action taken between September 15 and 18, the SDMC claimed it had received a letter from the Delhi Metro that the artisans had taken over land and were blocking the main road in the Titarpur area.