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The Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed police to pull down a part of the wall they built last week that blocked access to a school in Damoh city.
Police had constructed a wall that blocked access to St John’s Senior Secondary School, run by the Servite Sisters Society under the Jabalpur diocese, last Friday (June 23). They contended that the wall was built on police department property. Ever since the construction of the wall, classes at the school, which has more than 2,000 students, were moved online.
In the order passed on Wednesday, Justice Sanjay Dwivedi said the students could not be denied access to the school in such a manner.
“Looking at the interest of students and also of the general public, I am directing the respondents to provide an access to the school students to reach the school for a further period of 30 days,” the court said. The respondents in the case are the Damoh Collector, the Superintendent of Police and the MP Housing Corporation. The court said the petitioners may file a civil suit claiming right over the land, and also move an application for injunction before the competent court.
The court asked the respondents to “provide access by demolishing that portion of the boundary wall which is just in front of the school and covers the road, which would make it accessible to commuters”.
The school’s counsel, Anshuman Singh, had told the court that the road that was blocked by the boundary wall had been used by the school and the general public since 1989 without any objections being raised by authorities. It was public land, Singh said, arguing that it could not be closed in this manner.
The respondents’ counsel, Girish Kekre, contended that the road ran through land belonging to the police department, and that the matter was a civil dispute which could not be decided by a writ petition. He argued that the school should file a civil suit if it wanted to claim rights over the land. Kekre also argued that there is an alternative access to the school, and therefore, the action of closing the road could not be termed arbitrary or illegal.
In their reply, the petitioners said the alternative path was nothing but a small emergency exit in a private colony, and that it could not be considered a full-fledged access road.
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