Religious scriptures can’t be judged in court: Russian ambassador

Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin on Tuesday said, “No religious scripture can be judged in a court”. He said this during a meeting with external affairs minister SM Krishna at the Hyderabad house on Tuesday morning.

Krishna conveyed his concerns over a pending court verdict on Wednesday on the Bhagavad Gita, and sought Moscow’s help in resolving the “sensitive” issue.

“I believe no religious scripture can be judged in a court, whether it is the Quran, the Bible, or the Gita,” Kadakin, who is an Indologist, said and added that he had read the Gita and anyone who has done so would only have one opinion about the Gita that “it is a great scripture and it is a scripture of the world.”

Kadakin assured Krishna that though the matter is sub judice, the Russian government would do whatever is in its powers to resolve the issue.

In June Iskcon’s branch in Tomsk, Eastern Siberia, had received a notice on a complaint filed by the public prosecutor’s office in a local court. The complaint had alleged that a Russian translation of a commentary on Bhagavad Gita by Iskcon founder Swami Prabhupada had certain portions that were “objectionable” and “extremist” in nature.

The final hearing in the Tomsk district court was due on December 19, 2011, but was rescheduled for December 28, as the court agreed to seek the opinion of the Russian Ombudsman on Human Rights in Tomsk District, and of Indologists from Moscow and St. Petersburg.