Last year, the Supreme Court had delivered a split verdict on a plea seeking permission to bury a deceased Christian pastor in Chhattisgarh in the village graveyard or on his agricultural land.

The Supreme Court issued the stay while hearing a PIL regarding tribal Christians being denied burial rights in their villages. (Source: File)

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered an interim stay on the forcible exhumation of bodies in Chhattisgarh while hearing a plea that alleged that tribal Christians in the state were being denied the right to bury their dead in their villages and that those already buried were being forcibly shifted.

Issuing notice to the state government on the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality and Others, a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta ordered, “In the meantime, it is provided that no further exhumation of buried bodies shall be permitted.”
On January 27, 2025, the Supreme Court had delivered a split verdict on a plea seeking permission to bury a deceased Christian pastor in the village graveyard or on his private agricultural land in the state.

While Justice B V Nagarathna stated that the petitioner be permitted to bury his father in his private land, Justice S C Sharma had held that through procedures pertaining to last rites and ceremonies fall under fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution, no citizen has an “unqualified right claim that such right(s) would encompass the unqualified right to choose the “place” of such ceremony (including burial)…”.

Source: Indian Express