Violation of my Fundamental Right to life and personal liberty from noise pollution

Shri Ramesh Dave
The Hon’ble Chief Justice
Andhra Pradesh High Court
Hyderabad
February 1, 2010
Re: Violation of my Fundamental Right to life and personal liberty from noise pollution


Dear Sir,
1. My name is Aditya.D; a resident of Hyderabad. I am preparing for my Civil Services examination these days. I bring to you a very sensitive problem for which there is no proper redressal mechanism. The issue is an old one for which the Hon’ble Supreme Court has already pronounced the judgment. People baulk from addressing the problem in the name of it being a sensitive and religious issue.

2. There are multiple mosques around my home that have come up in the past few years. They are all mounted with huge megaphones. They use these sound amplifying systems to make their call for prayers five times a day. Unfortunately, the volume they maintain is very high and this is very annoying. Especially the azaan (call for prayer) at 5:30 in the mornings is too loud and jolts people from sleep. The volume of the speaker system is set to such high limit that one can hear the screeching sound of the speakers. It looks as if the volume is deliberately kept high to irritate the people in the surrounding areas, because the purpose does not merit such high volume.

3. The political representative here belongs to the muslim community, and when the public requests him to look into the problem, he does not respond positively as he feels the speakers are used only for a couple of minutes everyday.

4. Sir, a couple of minutes is enough to disturb ones sleep, a couple of minutes is enough to raise a sick person’s blood pressure, a couple of minutes is enough to wake infants up into cries, a couple of minutes, five times a day, everyday adds up to a lot of disturbance.

5. Though the prayer call lasts for about two to three minutes, due to the presence of multiple mosques, the aggregate duration of all of them goes beyond 15-20 minutes, as it is not possible for all of them to coordinate their prayer calls. The dawn in my locality sounds like a city in distress when these blaring prayer calls from all the mosques overlap.

6. We have talked about this with the local police authorities and they assure us every time that they would talk to the persons concerned. After that, the volume of the morning azan is reduced for a couple of days. But later on, they put it back to the same high volume. Again we will have to request the police to intervene. There is no scientific mechanism used to limit the maximum volume of the public address systems, though the Hon’ble Supreme Court has prescribed the decibel levels.

7. The children, the sick, the students, and the people who work late into the night need to sleep beyond the mosques’ call for their morning prayer. I cannot be expected to change my lifestyle according to mosques’ prayer timings. This violates my right to peaceful living. People have gone into such a compromise with this issue that they neither have the patience nor the courage to speak up against this violation of the fundamental right. Any sensible person who complains about this is made to keep quiet under the pretext of it being a sensitive and religious issue. My angst is more from the way the right of the people is violated with all impunity, than from the fact that it disturbs so many people everyday in the morning, not to mention four more times in the day.

8. The mosques have institutionalized the system of right to disturbing others and the right to create noise pollution. Such attitude from any religion is not acceptable in a civilized society based on rule of law. Such violation of right should be condemned when a temple or a church does it also. This problem not only polarizes people but also hampers harmonious living. With no other option, the people who suffer are in a way forced to leave the locality and move to another one, leading to communal (religion) based localities.

9. Most of the western countries have banned and many of the progressive muslim countries control the use of loud speakers by mosques. But in India, even though the Judiciary has delivered the judgment, it is not implemented. What is the sanctity of a judgment, which is not enforced? The valuable time of the court cannot be wasted by cases wherein the decisions are not taken seriously.

10. When the Executive of the State is found wanting in will to act, the Judiciary has acted in the interest of the public. Even when the Judiciary prescribes the rules, the Executive is lacking in its will to conform to the rules. In such a scenario, who is the public to go to?

11. Sir, I am not interested to get into litigation with anyone. I neither have the time nor the resources for litigation. However, I would be very happy to put my case before you orally. I would feel unburdened if you could give me a hearing.

12. It is my belief that the Constitutional values ought to be respected by everyone to live in a multi-cultural society like ours. One person’s tolerance cannot be taken undue advantage of, in the name of religion and secularism.

Prayer: I request the Hon’ble Court to intervene and find a permanent mechanism to ensure the implementation of the rules prescribed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court and see to it that the Fundamental Right under Article 21 is not violated.

Sincerely
Aditya