By Poonam Masih
Jagdalpur, Bastar: For 20 days, Ramesh Baghel kept his dead father’s body in a hospital mortuary in the town of Jagdalpur while he petitioned the Chhattisgarh high court and then the Supreme Court of India for permission to bury him in a graveyard in Chhindwada village in south Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district.
Finally, he buried his father, a Christian pastor, around midnight on 27 January, at a cemetery 25 km away from their village.
“I have not lost, humanity has,” Baghel, who owns a small general goods store, told Article 14.
Pastor Subhash Baghel died on 7 January 2025 at the Baliram Kashyap Memorial Government Medical College hospital in Jagdalpur, about 300 km south of Raipur in the south Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.
When a section of right-wing Hindu villagers objected to Ramesh Baghel burying his father’s body in the village marghat or graveyard, he approached the Chhattisgarh high court, contending that he had earlier buried other family members there.
Undeterred by the rejection of his plea, Baghel knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court.
Unable to reach a consensus, a two-judge bench of the SC gave a split verdict on 27 January. Instead of referring the matter to a larger bench, however, using the apex court’s powers under Article 142 of the Constitution pertaining to enforcement of decrees and orders, Justice B V Nagarathna allowed Justice S C Sharma’s main holding to stand. Seeking to avoid further delay, this order directed Ramesh Baghel to bury his father in the Christian burial ground in Karkapal village.
This story was originally published in article-14.com. Read the full story here.