Earlier this month, the court staff at Buxar undertook a cleaning drive which lasted for around four hours.
Neel Madhav | TwoCircles.net
BIHAR — Two notices issued by Buxar District Court in Bihar have raised questions on the independence of the judiciary in the state ruled by the coalition government of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal (United) (JDU).
The notices issued by the Court for cleaning of temples have been questioned by some lawyers who said the “judicial officers should use their work time for judicial matters only and there should be the separation of church and state” as laid out in the constitution of India. They have also asked why they were supposed to clean the site of a specific religion.
Recently, two notices were issued by Buxar District Court, Bihar. The first dated January 6 is signed by the in-charge officer of the Civil Court in Buxar.
One of the two notices, dated January 6, said that the Court staff had to clean temples on the morning of Sunday (January 9) as directed by the Chief Justice of Patna High Court. The notice said that all presiding officers of Courts along with their respective Court’s staff were ordered to clean temples if they were not engaged in special sitting for the final hearing that day.
A source privy to the development told TwoCircles.net that Chief Justice Sanjay Karol noticed garbage during a personal visit to various historical and religious sites in December last year.
“He asked the district court judges orally to clean it on a holiday. Later, the oral instruction was converted into a written one and this notice was issued,” the source said.
On January 9, the Court staff at Buxar undertook a cleaning drive.
Responding to this development, Sanjay Hegde, senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India told TwoCircles.net, “I do not know what prompted the High Court to issue a notice on the conditions of temples, while on a judicial inspection,” he said.
“All judicial officers must bear in mind that their work time can be dedicated to judicial matters only & that the separation of church and state is always maintained.”
The following day, a notice issued by the District said that the previous notice, dated 6th January was not issued under the directions of the Buxar District Judge and there has been some “mischief in the issuance of aforesaid notice.”
The notice issued on January 10 claims that the earlier notice asking to clean the temple on January 9 wasn’t authorized. At the same time, the same notice conveys the withdrawal of the previous notice.
“While the subsequent notice dated 10 January 2022 issued by the District Judge, Buxar notes that no such directions were given by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Patna, there appears to be an inconsistency between the first line and the fourth line of the notice dated 10 January,” Harshit Anand, an advocate from Patna said.
Neel Madhav is an independent journalist based in Khagaria, Bihar. He tweets at @NeelMadhav_