The Supreme Court on Tuesday took exception to the Centres practice of politicising the annual Haj pilgrimage by permitting official delegations to accompany the pilgrims,for which the government offers huge subsidy. What kind of practice is this? Maybe it has political use. It is a bad religious practice, said a Bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai. The SC made the remarks while dealing with the Centres appeal challenging a Bombay HC judgment which had directed the MEA to allow certain private operators to operate the services of 800 pilgrims out of the 11,000 pilgrims earmarked under the VIP quota subsidised by the government. The SC on Tuesday extended the stay. The Bench told Attorney General G E Vahanvati and counsel Harris Beeran,appearing for the Centre,that the government must evolve a new policy for Haj next year which would be monitored by the court.
