New Delhi: Quashing a notice by district authorities, the Madras high court allowed a farmer from Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri district to erect a statue of late Father Stan Swamy.
The petitioner, Piyush Sethia, had proposed to build a stone memorial commemorating Swamy on his private land.
Swamy was an 84-year-old Jesuit priest who worked for tribal rights in Jharkhand. He was implicated in the Bhima-Koregaon case and imprisoned under the draconian UAPA in 2020. Swamy passed away in jail due to post-Covid complications in 2021.
Sethia, who works on cooperative watershed development and farming, had said that Swamy taught “sustainable farming and lifestyle practices” to farmers of his village. Calling Swamy his mentor, Sethia said he wanted to commemorate his lifelong work to “protect the welfare of the Adivasi communities”.
Sethia contended that a notice from district officials sent to him in July, 2021 had prevented him from building the memorial, the Telegraph reported.
Quashing the notice, Justice M. Dhandapani observed that the notice “is not proper” and the charges against Swamy had never been proven.
Sethia’s counsel also pointed out that there were several legal precedents allowing statues of revered persons on private land.
The district authorities, opposing the memorial, said that Adivasi hamlets in Dharmapuri were a “haven for anti-social elements, with their ideology opposing the government and its functions”. The officials said Nekkundi village, to which Sethia belongs, was a “sensitive” area.
Officials also argued that Swamy was allegedly related to Naxal and Maoist groups.
However, the court dismissed these claims saying, “When an allegation put forth against a person is not proved, then the said allegation is nullity. In the instant case, Fr Stan Swamy had taken more efforts for the welfare of the tribals and the issue on hand is the erection of his statue/ stone pillar on the petitioner’s private land. As a general principle, the law grants citizens the right to install statues in their own private property. The only restriction is that such an erection of the statue should not bring any conflict between two communities or in a way that would hurt the feelings of a particular society. There is no legal impediment if erection of a statue at a private land is permitted.”
The court added that as Sethia will bear the expenses of the memorial’s construction, any permission from authorities is not required.
Swamy’s arrest and death
The octogenarian activist’s arrest and mistreatment in prison during the pandemic had drawn widespread backlash across the world.
Swamy, who was a Parkinson’s patient, had to move the court for a sipper so that he could drink water without hindrance. However, the court rejected his plea. Subsequently, several activists and concerned citizens sent dozens of sippers to the jail he was lodged in.
The activist had appealed for bail in lower courts at least thrice and once in the Bombay high court.
A year after his death, an investigation by a Boston-based firm, Arsenal Consulting, had revealed that fabricated “evidence” was planted on the activist’s laptop.
