Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Bench deprecates caste-wise spaces

MADURAI: The Madras High Court, on Thursday, expressed its anguish and deprecated the practice of allotting exclusive spaces/sheds for different caste groups even in cremation grounds maintained by local bodies.

Dismissing a writ petition filed in the Madurai Bench, Justice K. Chandru said: “At least in the departure from this world, there can be unity so that apartheid may not be practised by the official acts of the (Madurai) Corporation.”

T. Balasubramanian, Nattanmai (president) of Arya Vaisya community here, had filed the petition against premature cancellation of a five-year agreement reached between him and the Corporation to use 3,300 square feet at Thathaneri cremation ground. Irked at the permission granted to the petitioner, the Judge directed the Corporation to bring such practice to an end. The local body, in future, should desist from allotting separate cremation sheds on caste basis, he ordered.

“Even though the Corporation Act makes it obligatory for the Corporation to provide public cremation grounds, it does not mean that it should be vivisected on the basis of community wise or caste wise,” he said.

Giving a word of advice, Mr. Justice Chandru reminded the petitioner of a yesteryear popular film song (‘Samarasam ulavum idame’) which summarised the burning ghat as the only place where total equality between communities existed.

He quoted the lyrics of the Tamil song verbatim in the judgement “for the benefit of the petitioner and his community so that they may give up a separate enclosure within the public cremation ground.”

In his counter affidavit, the Corporation Commissioner had said that the agreement entered with the petitioner was cancelled following a quarrel between his community and the Marwari community which was allotted an adjacent cremation shed.

The Commissioner further stated that there was a Kali temple near the shed allotted for the petitioner’s community and the residents of Melakailasapuram and Keezhakailasapuram had objected to its existence.

The Judge said that the petition deserved dismissal even on merits, as the agreement, supposedly reached between the Corporation and the petitioner in 2002, came to an end in 2007 itself.

“At this point of time, in the absence of any legal right in favour of the petitioner’s community, the court cannot direct them to enjoy an exclusive privilege of having a separate cremation shed,” he said.

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