NEW DELHI, Apr 16:
Frowning over the practice of politicians and bureaucrats travelling on Haj pilgrimage at Government subsidy, the Supreme Court today told the Centre that these “goodwill delegations” need to be scrapped to ensure that only genuine pilgrims are benefited.
“These goodwill delegations need to be scrapped altogether. They are no longer relevant. Even a team of 9 to 10 persons is not required,” a bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai told Attorney General G E Vahanvati.
The Apex Court made the observation after Vahanvati and Centre’s counsel Harris Beran told the bench that these goodwill delegations are sent to Haj every year to promote the country’s image as is being done by other countries.
However, the bench pointed out that the practice of sending goodwill delegations was started by India in 1967 after the Indo-Pak war as the neighbouring state used the pilgrimage to launch anti-India rhetoric.
“This necessity is no longer there. We will gradually reduce it to four or five and then scrap it altogether,” the bench said.
Earlier, the Attorney General submitted that in a bid to ensure that more pilgrims go for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the official goodwill delegations, which earlier used to comprise 30 people have over the years been pruned to 9-10 persons.
The Apex Court was hearing an appeal filed by the Centre challenging a Bombay High Court judgement, which had directed the Ministry of External Affairs to allow certain private operators to operate the services of 800 of the 11,000 pilgrims earmarked under the VIP quota subsidised by the Government.
At the earlier hearing, the bench had pulled up the Centre’s practice of “politicising” Haj by permitting official delegations to accompany the pilgrims, for which the Government offers huge subsidy, saying, “It’s a bad religious practice.”
In an affidavit, the Centre told the court that it has decided to restrict Haj pilgrimage at Government subsidy to Muslims only as a “once in a lifetime” affair as against the existing policy of “once in five years”.
It said the new guidelines have been framed to ensure that priority is given to those applicants who have never performed Haj.
“This is a major change introduced for the first time. Restrict the number of pilgrimages to a Haj applicant through HCOI (Haj Committee of India) to ‘once in a lifetime’ as against the existing ‘once in five years’. This will ensure that the Haji will benefit from Government subsidy only once in his/her lifetime. It will also ensure that priority is given to those applicants who have never performed Haj,” the Centre said.
The Government, however, refrained from disclosing the amount of subsidy being incurred by it for 2012 saying, “The exact figure in respect of the travel subsidy to the pilgrims going through Haj Committee of India for 2012 will be known after the Hajis completed their Haj journey and return to India.”
According to the Government, priority will be given to those who are in the 70 plus category and those who had unsuccessfully applied thrice earlier for the subsidy.
The Apex Court earlier expressed its dismay at the practice of sending official delegations to accompany the pilgrims and had asked the Centre to furnish entire details regarding Haj subsidy, as also to the criteria adopted. (PTI)
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