New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea seeking directions to restrain Prime Minister Narendra Modi from offering a ceremonial ‘chadar’ at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah, saying the issue is not justiciable.
A bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi refused to entertain the plea, which also challenged the extension of state-sponsored ceremonial honour and symbolic recognition to Islamic scholar Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and to the Ajmer Dargah by the Union government and its instrumentalities.
Advocate Barun Sinha, appearing for petitioner Jitender Singh and others, submitted that the practice of the prime minister offering a ‘chadar’ at the Ajmer Dargah of Moinuddin Chishti, initiated by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947, has continued since without any legal or constitutional basis.
CJI Kant told Sinha, “This court would not make any comment as the issue is not justiciable.”
Sinha said that a civil suit is pending in the trial court on the claim that the dargah was built over the ruins of a Shiva temple.
The top court clarified that the dismissal of the writ petition will not have any bearing on the pending civil suit. “You go and seek appropriate relief in the civil suit,” CJI Kant said.
The petitioners Jitender Singh and Vishnu Gupta, members of a Hindu outfit, said they are aggrieved by the “continued practice of state-sponsored ceremonial honour, official patronage and symbolic recognition extended to Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti by various instrumentalities” of the Union government.
“Historical records indicate that Moinuddin Chishti was associated with foreign invasions that conquered Delhi and Ajmer and caused mass subjugation and conversions of the native population, actions fundamentally contrary to India’s sovereignty, dignity, and civilisational ethos,” their plea said.
