Supreme Court: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to initiate contempt proceedings for the demolition of a monastery associated with Sikhism founder Guru Nanak Dev in Odisha’s Puri. A senior counsel appearing for the petitioners argued that the demolition was in violation of a judicial order.
A bench headed by Justice MR Shah said it was dismissing the petition as there was no ‘disobedience’ in it. The bench also included Justice CT Ravikumar. The bench said, тАЬWe do not want to initiate contempt proceedings. We are rejecting it. We do not see any reason to initiate contempt proceedings.
The Supreme Court issued an order in 2019 saying…
The petitioners had said that the Supreme Court had issued an order in 2019 stating that while sanitizing the area around the Jagannath temple, the authorities would ensure that the deities in the math, the samadhi, would not be affected. Along with this, they will be kept at the existing place with better beautification on the lines of Kalinga style of architecture.
There were demonstrations in 2019
The petitioners claimed that the premises where Guru Nanak had visited more than 500 years ago was demolished despite an affidavit by the authorities. Officials told the top court in 2019 that there was a need to clean the area near the Jagannath temple so that there was no stampede, no fire incident. There were demonstrations in December 2019 over the demolition of the Sikh Math complex in Puri.
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