The Supreme Court on Monday drastically slashed the government’s discretionary quota for Haj pilgrims to 300 from a whopping 5,050 seats currently being used by government ‘delegations’.
The Supreme Court on Monday drastically slashed the government’s discretionary quota for Haj pilgrims to 300 from a whopping 5,050 seats currently being used by government ‘delegations’.
A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai limited the discretionary quota of the president to 100, and vice president and prime minister to 75 each and external affairs minister to 50. The Haj Committee of India will have 200 seats at its disposal.
The apex court’s order came during the resumed hearing of lawsuits filed by a group of travel agents in Maharashtra, challenging the arbitrary reservation of Haj seats by the government and imposing stringent conditions on their business. The court was told that 11,000 seats were reserved under the government quota for Haj 2012.
In another direction that has come in continuation with the court’s May 8 order, the bench put up restrain on any high court from entertaining any lawsuit concerning registration of pilgrims for Haj 2012.
While directing the Union government to “progressively reduce” the amount on Haj subsidy so that the ‘bounty’ is completely eliminated within 10 years, the apex court has ruled that the money spent on the subsidy should instead be used for social and educational development of Muslims.
The Union government spends more than Rs600 crore annually in providing Haj subsidy. Last year, 1.25 lakh pilgrims went for the pilgrimage. The court said that a large number of Muslims would not be comfortable to know that their pilgrimage is funded to a substantial extent by the government.
The court pointed out that while it was understandable after the 1971 war with Pakistan for a large government delegation to accompany the pilgrims to repel anti-India propaganda by Pakistan at the holy place, there was no need for it now.
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