Today, in the matter of Mohammad Ikbal And M. Maheshwar Rao, the Division Bench of Karnataka High Court comprising Justice B Veerappa and Justice Venkatesh Naik T slams the State government of Karnataka to providing basic needs like water, food, road and burial grounds to its Citizens.

The bench orally remarked "This is basic needs, people want basic needs, burial ground and roads and water. This is your duty, Constitutional mandate, why are you not doing it?” 

It added, “Only drama for 75 years we are doing. Please provide basic requirements to the people.”

Moahmmed Ikbal, filed a petition seeking to take action against the accused for wilful disobedience of a 2019 order wherein a Coordinate Bench had directed the State Government to take all possible steps to provide burial grounds to all the villages and towns within a period of six months.

Government Prosecutor, informed the court about its willingness to publish in newspapers in the entire state, inviting the general public to inform where there is no burial ground in any village and that will take steps to provide a burial ground in each and every village in the entire state.

The Court requested KLSLA to recheck proper information obtained from all DLSA members and Taluka legal service committees, to ensure there should be no village without a burial ground in the entire state. 

As per the reports of the Deputy Commissioners, the State is in the process of evicting encroachments in 56 villages. Apart from the said 56 villages there are no encroachments of burial grounds in any of the other villages in the State of Karnataka. Following this, the court had in order to ascertain the correctness of the affidavit sought reports from all the Taluk Legal Services Committees and District Legal Services Authority in the State.