13/07/2009

A goodnews from the Supreme Court

The entire muslim community of the country might have read it with pleasure in the 7th July Newspapers, that Justice Katju of Supreme Court has taken back his statement which he made on 30th March ruling out a petition of one student in a case regarding the beard. A convent student of Madhya Pradesh Mohammed Saleem's petition to get permisiion for keeping beard, Justice Katju said" Beard is a symbol of Talibanism and we do not want Taliban in this country, permission can not be granted for Talibanizing the country, tomorrow if any female student come and seek permission to go in class with Burqa, if permission should be given to her, expanding the sheet of secularism above its limit is not right..." It is obvious that this statement though was not part of the judgement and was just oral comment, was provoking, heart-breaking and irresponsible. Anyway these mean comments do not suit to not only for supreme court, for any other court's judge, not at all for the personality like Justice Katju. Because he is well known as a civilized, well-mannered and responsible individual. That is why his remark, to many, was shocking and painfull.

This is certainly uprightness
Now on 6th June two membered bench of supreme court, one of the members Justice Katju himself, took back their first order and expressed grief over Justice Katju's statement and said apologizing, " during the hearing, one of us (Justice Katju) passed some remarks, but those were not meant to upset, but if that caused to hurt anyone's feeling, he ask for pardon and express grief over the entire matter." Mohammed Saleem challenged the 30th March order and said that his petition be sent to some other bench because Justice Katju is not fair in this case. In 6th June hearing bench said this case will be sent to Chief Justice so that he refer to some other bench. Other Judge of the bench was R.V.Ravindran. Muslim welcoming this new action of the court, show contentment over Justice Katju's statement and think it his uprightness. The fact is that this apology is appropriate to his personality and previous statement was contradictory to his personality. The faithfulness is that on 30th March immediately after statement Justice Katju himself realized his error.

Meetings should be held with Justice
There is a history of Indian Judges irresponsible and some times even prejudiced remarks. These remarks come from judges of different level courts. Few among them are the part of actual judgements but often dissolved in air after coming out of tongues. The events of taking back their remarks by judges happened very rarely. In this situation this act of Justice Katju is indeed historical. By this not only muslims, all justice loving citizen are glad. Anyway immediately after 30th June few muslim clerics had meetings with Justice Katju and he admitted that he is sorry over his statement. For example famous lawyer Professor Tahir Mahmood met Justice on 3rd April and infomred that Justice is sorry over his comments. Then, many corners did not take is seriously, but now on 6th June after the formal apology it has become clear that the information was true. Now muslim personalities of repute should meet Justice Katju and congratulate him and if get a chance have some discussion over other rituals of Islam too. Like reagrding Pardah (Veil) , prohibition of interest, prohibition of liqour, killing daughters in mother's womb, homosexuality etc.
13/07/09 khabar-O-Nazar by Parwaaz Rahmani, sehrozaDAWAT, translated by: Ibrahim Shaikh

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