The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition to restrain Prime Minister Narendra Modi from offering ceremonial chadar at the tomb of Sufi Saint Khwaja Moinuddin Hasan Chisti during the 814th annual Urs at Ajmer Sharif Dargah.
A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said that the issue was not one which can be decided by court.The Bench also said that the issue has become infructuous since the chadar offering had already been made."This is infructuous now. This is not a justiciable issue. No issue raised is justiciable. Writ petition is dismissed," the Court stated.However, the Court clarified that the order will not have any bearing on the civil suit pending before Ajmer court concerning the Dargah.
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.
"Suit is pending, pursue it. This order shall have no bearing on the pending civil suit," the top court said.Offering of chadar at the Ajmer Sharif Dargah is a tradition which has been followed by past Prime Ministers as well.A similar plea had been filed before an Ajmer court earlier this year.That application was filed by then Hindu Sena President Vishnu Gupta and was part of an ongoing suit before the Ajmer court alleging that the Ajmer Sharif Dargah was constructed on the site of a demolished 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.Gupta had argued that the Central government by sending a chadar to a "disputed structure" was undermining judicial independence and right to fair trial, when a case related to it is pending before the trial court.
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