Dargah razing: Nashik civic body had said part of area ‘earmarked for Pir’

On April 16, the Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC), which had earlier declared the dargah illegal, began a demolition drive there, triggering protests that left three dozen police personnel injured and led to the arrest of more than 30 people. By the time the Supreme Court heard the case hours later and stayed the drive, the entire structure had been flattened.

The NMC’s demolition came on the back of the Bombay High Court’s observations on March 12. While hearing the Dargah Committee’s petition against the demolition, a Division Bench comprising Justices A S Gadkari and Kamal Khata had observed that the “structure is wholly unauthorised and illegal”.

A bulldozer being used to demolish an allegedly illegal structure of a dargah, in Nashik district, Maharashtra. (PTI Photo)

The structure, its history

Kathe Galli, the area where the dargah is located, was sparsely populated in the 1980s and 1990s, despite its central location, primarily characterised by individual bungalows. With Nashik’s rapid urban expansion, the locality transformed, with several residential buildings now surrounding the dargah. Originally an open-air site, the dargah has, over the past decade, been enclosed by a boundary wall and an arched gateway, covering a total area of 257 square metres (sqm).

The Dargah Committee maintains that the 257 sqm of land on which the shrine stands is Waqf property. “We have all the documents to prove that this is a legal structure. There was no urgency. The NMC rushed the demolition because they feared a Supreme Court order in our favour,” Tabrez Inamdar, chairman of the Dargah Committee, told The Indian Express.

But the NMC claims that the dargah is an illegal structure that stands on “open space” — a land that, in urban planning, typically refers to an open area that remains undeveloped to use for recreational, environmental or aesthetic purposes.

In her affidavit before the Bombay HC on March 12, Municipal Commissioner Manisha Khatri stated that the structure was illegally built on NMC — and not Waqf — land.

“The petitioner had constructed unauthorised religious structure almost on entire area owned by the corporation without any permission from the corporation and without any authority,” Khatri said in her affidavit to the Bombay High Court. “It is important to note that the petitioner had registered the Waqf property admeasuring 257.36 sqm, which is not in existence. In view of this, the corporation, by demolishing the unauthorised structure on their own property, is not violation of any order passed by the Hon’ble Waqf Tribunal.”

On the other hand, in their court filings, the dargah’s 13-member trust comprising eight Muslims and five Hindus claimed that the shrine is at least a century-and-a-half old, with historical documents dating back to 1853 to validate its religious significance.

They also alleged that the property was originally a Waqf property and listed as such in 2011, but the names of private individuals were gradually inserted into official records. They claimed that when preparing the layout, a developer, in coordination with NMC’s Town Planning Department, deliberately marked the dargah’s location within the “open space” of the layout to maximise land that he planned to sell to buyers.

Police personnel put barricades after tension erupted in the area late Tuesday night following attempts by the Municipal Corporation to demolish an allegedly illegal dargah, in Nashik, Maharashtra. (PTI Photo)

Decade-old row and a flashpoint

It was in 2015 that the NMC first issued its notice over the site. In the notice, the civic body claimed that this expanded area constituted “unauthorised encroachment” on a designated open space and that the structure had come up after 2009. The notice also demanded the removal of the “encroachments”.

This was challenged by the dargah trustees, and the matter remained sub-judice in a Nashik court.

Then, in the run-up to the Maharashtra assembly elections, the row escalated significantly: What began as a push to remove recent extensions around the dargah gradually turned into demands for demolishing the entire structure, including the tombs, which the NMC claimed were built without their permission.

On September 3 last year, over two months before the state went to polls, the NMC issued a letter to the Dargah Committee summoning them to a hearing the next day. Minutes from an NMC meeting a week later show that the then Nashik Municipal Commissioner, Dr Ashok Karanjkar, on September 3, 2024, acknowledged that records from the past five decades showed the existence of the dargah.

“The Hon’ble Commissioner stated that, upon examining records from the past 50 years as well as the map and certificate from the then Additional District Magistrate regarding ULC (Urban Land Ceiling) in 1998, it is observed that an area of 37.54 sqm was earmarked for the Pir,” the minutes of the meeting state. A Pir is someone deemed a spiritual guide in Sufism.

The minutes of the meeting, however, state that regarding ownership of the religious place, no documents or records were found with the Waqf Board.

In response to the NMC notice, the Dargah Committee approached the Maharashtra Waqf Tribunal, which, on September 13, issued an order restraining the NMC from demolishing any part of the 257 sqm plot. According to court documents, despite this order, the NMC proceeded with its demolition on February 22, tearing down a gate, a boundary wall and the front portion of the property, sparking unrest in the area.

Alarmed by the action, the Dargah Committee filed a writ petition in the Bombay High Court on February 26, terming the demolition “arbitrary” and a “misuse of power”, and arguing it violated the Waqf Tribunal’s directive. It was during the petition’s hearing on March 12 that a Division Bench observed that the structure was “wholly unauthorised and illegal”, and allowed the petitioner to withdraw their petition.

This came after the petitioner’s lawyer, when asked to provide documents to prove the legality of the structure, admitted that no such documents were available “at least as of today”.

The NMC interpreted this observation as a legal directive and proceeded with the demolition. It issued a fresh notice on April 1, deeming the dargah illegal and ordering its voluntary removal within 15 days.

Facing the prospect of demolition, the Dargah Committee once again challenged the order, first trying to approach the HC but then moving the SC. But before the apex court could hear the petition, the NMC demolished the entire dargah, including the shrine and the tombs.

The demolition, which took place amid a power outage in the area, was followed by violent clashes and stone pelting. In its order hours after the drive, the SC stayed any further demolition and sought clarification from the Registrar General of the Bombay HC on why the dargah committee’s petition challenging the April 1 notice was not listed for hearing. The apex court also questioned the sequence of events, calling the situation “a travesty of justice”.

Activist Fahim Shaikh, who has been named as one of the main accused in the rioting case from the day of the protests, said that the NMC has repeatedly changed its stance, initially acknowledging the structure existed 50 years ago but eventually asking for more documents.

“They knew the SC was likely to stay the demolition, so they acted under the cover of night,” she claimed.

Chaitrali Deshmukh, counsel for the NMC in the Bombay High Court, stated that there is no historical record to prove the prior existence of the grave at the site. “The entire structure, including boundary walls, was constructed illegally on corporation land as the said structure was constructed without any permission,” she said.