Questioning the logic that prohibited Muslim students from sporting beards,the Supreme Court on Friday directed Nirmala Convent High School in Madhya Pradesh to reinstate Mohd Salim,a 10th Class student,sacked after he refused to shave insisting it was part of his religious belief. "Merely because you have a beard,they removed you? So if you are a Sikh,you will not be able to sport a beard. Tommorrow they will say you are not fair complexioned. "Nowadays,it has become a fashion for some people to pierce their ears for putting the ring. So such persons will not be allowed to study?",a bench of Justices B N Aggrawal and G S Singhvi said,issuing notice to the missionary school authorities on Salim's fresh petition. The direction and remarks by the bench assume significance as this is the third time the issue has cropped up before the apex court and an earlier bench had dismissed the student's plea with the controversial observation by Justice Markandeya Katju that the country cannot be "Talibanised." Salim had subsequently filed a review petition objecting to the observations and expressed apprehension over Justice Katju's impartiaility,forcing the bench headed by Justice R V Raveendran to recuse (withdraw) and request the Chief Justice of India to refer the matter to another bench. Salim's fresh Special Leave Petition (SLP) was taken up formally today by the bench of Justice Aggrawal and Justice Singhvi. Puri said almost USD six billion private equity fund was also likely to come in the six to eight months time to the domestic real estate market. "Private equity funds which have raised the money from the Indian market and the management are Indian and also those which might have raised fund outside are now investing in the Indian market," Puri said. However,he said private equity funds raised overseas and managed by non-Indians are still not coming into the Indian real estate market. Puri,meanwhile,cautioned that the price of the residential properties should not go up drastically as the industry was still on the thin ice. "A minor 5-10 per cent hike is fine,but anything beyond that will take away the confidence from the consumers," Puri said. The court had also said if the student was not interested in following the rules,then he has the option of joining some other institution. "You can join some other institution if you do not want to observe the rules. But you can't ask the school to change the rules for you," Justice Katju had said. Appearing for the student,senior advocate B A Khan had,during the arguments,said Article 25 of the Constitution guaranteed protection to Salim to pursue his religious practice of keeping beard and the regulation providing for shaving it was violative of this provision. He said the act of the principal to force the student to leave the school for keeping beard was against "his religious conscience,belief and custom of his family". Pointing out that Sikh community members were allowed to keep a beard and sport a turban,Salim alleged there was a clear discrimination by the school to force him to be clean shaven and this rule was violative of his fundamental right.
