GANGA MANDIR Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition is filed seeking a writ of mandamus directing the Senior Superintendent of Police, Haridwar, and the Station House Officer, Police Station Kotwali, Haridwar, to provide protection to the petitioners in case of any threat or interference being caused, by the 4th respondent-Ganga Sabha - a registered society at Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar, to the life and property of the petitioners; and for a writ of mandamus directing the Ganga Sabha not to extend any threat to the life and property of the petitioners.

(2.) After the writ petition was filed, the Teerth Purohit Samaj filed an application to implead themselves as a respondent in the Writ Petition and, by order dated 06.03.2014, they stood impleaded as the 5th respondent. Thereafter, an application (CLMA No. 14378 of 2018) was filed by the petitioner to implead the Haridwar Development Authority as the 6th respondent in the writ petition, and the impleadment application was ordered by a Division Bench of this Court by its order dated 19.09.2018.

(3.) This case has a checkered history. The dispute in this writ petition revolves around a temple situated at Har Ki Pauri in Haridwar called the 'Ganga Mandir'. Even according to the petitioners themselves, as has been stated in the writ affidavit, the said temple was built by Raja Man Singh of Ajmer, Jaipur in the 16th Century, wherein the idols of Sri Ram Chandra Ji, Sita Ji, Laxman Ji, Hanuman Ji and Radha Krishna Ji were installed. The main idol is that of Ganga Ji. This temple is situated in the stream of the River 'Ganges' which forms the Har Ki Pauri.