New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered that construction of the B R Ambedkar Park in Lucknow and six other memorials of Dalit icons be stopped by 1900 hrs IST Friday.
The court also ordered the state government to ensure that no persons, except the watch and wards staff, be present in and around the memorials after Friday evening.
A bench comprising B N Agrawal and Aftab Alam issued a show cause notice to Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Secretary, the state’s senior most bureaucrat, for allegedly violating its September 8 order in which the government had given an undertaking that it will not carry out any further construction.
It asked the Chief Secretary to explain in "unambiguous" terms the construction being carried out Ambedkar Park.
The court gave the order while taking suo-moto cognizance of media reports that the state government was continuing construction at Ambedkar Park despite its undertaking.
The Supreme Court had on September 8 criticized the Uttar Pradesh government for spending Rs 2,600 crore on memorials for Kanshi Ram and other Dalit leaders in Lucknow, saying it would examine the constitutional validity of such memorials for political leaders using taxpayers' money.
The bench had said that the government cannot "fritter away" public money on such memorials. The Mayawati government had triggered a controversy by changing the land use of certain areas adjoining the 35-acre sprawling Ambedkar Sthal park green belt area by demolishing 30-odd public buildings to construct memorials.
Several public interest petitions have been filed against the UP government building memorials.
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