The Allahabad High Court has rejected a request by a Christian organisation for government land to be used as a cemetery in Uttar Pradesh, ruling that religious freedom does not give a community an automatic right to claim a specific plot of public land.
In its judgment on 12 October, a bench comprising Justices J.J. Munir and Indrajeet Shukla acknowledged the Christian community’s right to religious freedom but said the government was not legally obliged to allocate a particular piece of land for burials.
The judges explained that converting land managed by a local authority into a public facility, such as a cemetery, was an administrative decision that required consideration of several factors. They added that authorities could consider such requests in the wider public interest, particularly where there was a shortage of burial space.
The case followed a decision by the Ghaziabad district magistrate on 7 January rejecting a request from the Christian Community Welfare Society for land to establish a cemetery.
The organisation had sought 0.342 hectares of unused land in Visokhar village, in the Modi Nagar area, citing a shortage of space for Christian burials. However, the land had not been designated for use as a burial ground, prompting the society to approach the district authorities.
Vinaya Kumar Paul, president of the society, said there had been no objections to allocating the unused land for Christian burials.
Despite acknowledging that the land was barren, the district authorities did not approve the request. The society subsequently challenged the decision, but the High Court upheld the rejection.
People familiar with the case alleged that an adverse report prepared by an additional district magistrate, to whom the district magistrate had delegated the matter, had introduced communal considerations into the decision. The court accepted the report, they claimed. These allegations were reported by those familiar with the case.
Father Babu Joseph, a Divine Word priest and former spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, questioned whether the judgment adequately addressed the community’s practical needs.
Speaking to UCA News, he said the society’s main objective was to secure unused land because the existing burial area no longer had sufficient space. He argued that seeking land for burials was a legitimate concern shared by communities of different faiths.
Father Joseph also suggested that linking the request directly to the broader constitutional principle of religious freedom may have gone beyond the petition’s central purpose.
The ruling highlights the distinction between the constitutional right to religious freedom and the legal process governing the allocation of public land. For the Christian community in the area, however, the immediate concern remains finding sufficient space to bury its dead.
Based on reporting by UCA News.
