Delhi High Court seeks Centre’s response on plea seeking opportunity for all Muslims staffers to assist Haj Pilgrims instead of CAPF personnel
The Court also asked the Haj Division of the Union Ministry to place its stand on record.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought the Center’s response on a plea seeking an opportunity for all Muslim employees of Centre, States, and Union Territories to assist Haj pilgrims instead of deputing only Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) personnel.
A division bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad asked the Haj Division of the Union Ministry to place its stand on record. Accordingly, the court listed the matter for further hearing on May 10, 2023.
The petitioner challenged the March 20 office memorandum of the Ministry on temporary deputation which includes only employees working in CAPF.
The plea filed by Aamir Javed, an advocate, sought direction to amend an office memorandum of March 20, 2023 in order to give opportunities to all Muslim employees of Centre, States, and Union Territories to assist Haj pilgrims as coordinators (admin), assistant Haj officers and Haj assistants for Haj in 2023. “Otherwise, the office memorandum violates Article 14 (right to equality) of the Constitution”, the plea claimed.
The office memorandum of the Ministry is on temporary deputation for haj assistance which includes only employees working in CAPF.
According to the office memorandum, approximately 1.4 lakh Indian pilgrims will be participating in Haj-2023. The first flight for the pilgrimage from India will take off on May 21. The annual pilgrimage will take place around June end.
“The petition is being filed on the basis that other Central or state government/UT administration employees are not eligible for any deputation in the office memorandum… dated March 20, 2023, which earlier was a practice of the Government of India to send male and female members of the Muslim community who are employees of various government departments on deputation on a temporary basis to Consulate General of India, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to render assistance to Haj pilgrims,” the plea stated.
It also stated that the office memorandum cites explicitly that the work involved is administrative in nature and thus, there was no reason as to why only CAPF employees were eligible and other permanent employees were not.
The plea added that this violates the constitutional rights of other employees to serve Haj pilgrims.
The petitioner stated that a letter was sent to Union Minority Affairs Minister Smriti Irani on March 22, 2023 requesting to amend the office memorandum. However, no response was received after which the petition was filed in court.
The petitioner was represented by Advocate Aslam Ahmed, Advocate Shabista Nabi, Advocate Raees Ahmed, Advocate Shiv Kumar Chauhan, and Advocate Rohith Murugan Subramoniam.
Case Title: Aamir Javed v. Haj division, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Union of India through its Secretary