How can a court interfere into an individual’s right to practise religion, asked Bombay High Court (HC) while hearing a PIL challenging the ban on women from entering the inner sanctum (mazaar) of Haji Ali Dargah. Justices S C Dharmadhikari and S P Deshmukh said there were several places of worship like mosques, temples where women were forbidden but such places do not warrant a mandate or sanction from the court. “In so many religious places like mosques and temples women are forbidden but no court has interfered. How can the court act legally? It goes out of the court’s premises,” HC said. Unless, the court clarified, prayers in mosques were being offered in such a manner that someone’s rights were being violated, the court cannot interfere in this issue. Noorjehan Niaz and Zakia Soman of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan have challenged the ban saying they experienced the restriction, which was imposed somewhere between March 2011-June 2012. The court asked the petitioners to satisfy the court on whether there are judgments and legal points favouring the petitioners’ case. However, it expressed how could something which was essential and integral to the rights of one individual merit HC’s intervention. “Legal issues raised by the court should be satisfied. Whether court can interfere in matter of individual right to worship,” the HC said. The petitioners said they never faced hurdles while accessing the inner sanctum but now there is a barricade. According to the PIL, a trustee in July 2012 told them the decision was taken for the safety and security of women and is based on Sharia provisions, but eventually realised it was sheer discrimination. The PIL says if Sharia says something that is contrary to the principles enshrined in the Constitution of India, it is the Constitution alone which, as the supreme law of the land, should prevail over contravening personal laws. In reply to the PIL, the trustee of the shrine says the stand is a result of the “advice” of scholars for segregating men and women in places of worship so that sexual harassment of women is abstained. In the affidavit, Masood Hasham Dada has further said that menstruating women bring disrespect if they attent religious rituals. “I state that dargahs, temples, churches, gurdwaras, etc., are sacred and divine places, and, therefore, one should exercise some rules to respect them.”
