NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court is set to take up on Monday a PIL by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay to direct the Union Home Ministry to set up a “Renaming Commission” to find out original names of ‘ancient historical cultural religious places’, rechristened after barbaric foreign invaders.
A bench of Justices K M Joseph and B V Nagarathna would hear the plea on Monday, February 27.
The petition highlighted that forming such a panel was necessary to maintain sovereignty and to secure ‘right to dignity, right to religion and right to culture’ guaranteed under Articles 21, 25 and 29 of the Constitution.
Citing names of hundreds of such cities, the petitioner also sought a direction to the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct research and publish the initial names of ancient historical cultural religious places, which were renamed by barbaric foreign invaders, in order to secure ‘right to know’ guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution.
"We are celebrating the 75th anniversary of independence but there are many ancient historical cultural religious places in the name of brutal foreign invaders, their servants and family members. Invaders not only renamed the general places but also changed the names of ancient historical cultural religious places, and their continuation after 75 years of Independence is against sovereignty, right to dignity, right to religion and right to culture guaranteed under Articles 21, 25 and 29 of the Constitution. But governments have not taken steps to correct the barbaric act of invaders and injury is continuing," the plea said.
It pointed out that the cause of action accrued on January 29, 2023, when Mughal Garden at Rashtrapati Bhawan was renamed as 'Amrit Udyan' but government did nothing to rename the roads named after invaders like Babur Road, Humayun Road, Akbar Road, Jahangir Road, Shahjahan Road, Bahadur Shah Road, Sher Shah Road, Aurangzeb Road, Tughlak Road, Safdarjung Road, Najaf Khan Road, Jauhar Road, Lodhi Road, Chelmsford Road and Hailey Road etc. It is necessary to state that the Cabinet Ministers, Parliamentarians and the Judges, who are custodian of the Constitution of India and protector of fundamental rights have the bungalow on these roads.
The petitioner gave examples of hundreds of places and cities which got named after barbaric invaders, despite their brutal deeds of killings and conversions.
The petitioner said there were about 1000 of such villages, wards, towns and cities but government did nothing to change their name till date.
Maintaining that the government is competent to correct historical wrongs, the petitioner cited the Supreme Court's judgement in 'S S Ahluwalia vs Union of India' (2002), which held that in the expanded meaning attributed to Article 21 of the Constitution, it is the duty of the State to create a climate where members of the society belonging to different faiths, caste and creed live together and, therefore, the State has a duty to protect their life, liberty, dignity and worth of an individual which should not be jeopardized or endangered. If in any circumstance the state is not able to do so, then it cannot escape the liability to pay compensation to the family of the person killed during riots as his or her life has been extinguished in clear violation of Article 21 of the Constitution.
The petitioner raised questions of law whether continuing the names of ancient historical cultural religious places, in the names of barbaric invaders is against sovereignty and whether the Centre and States are obligated to change the names of ancient historical cultural religious places in their original name.
In the plea, Upadhyay also sought a direction to the Centre and state governments to update their websites and records and mention the original names of ancient historical cultural religious places, named after the barbaric foreign invaders.
