A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Aftab Alam on Tuesday directed the Centre to completely phase out the Haj travel subsidy, saying it was against the tenets of Islam. Citing “Verse-97 in Surah-3” of the Quran, Justices Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai said that according to the verse, the Haj pilgrimage is only permitted to those who can afford the expenses for “one’s conveyance and provision for residence” in Mecca.
“We, therefore, direct the Central government to progressively reduce the subsidy so as to completely eliminate it within a period of 10 years from today,” Justice Alam wrote. “The subsidy money may be profitably used for upliftment of the community in education and other indi-ces of social development.”
A majority of Muslim clerics and leaders have welcomed the ruling, saying that instead of granting a subsidy, the government should lay down a proper mechanism for open bidding among airlines to take nearly 50,000 Muslims to Mecca every year, and said Air India’s monopoly on Haj flights be done away with.
The All India Majlis Ittihadul Muslimeen Supremo and Hyderabad MP, Mr Asaduddin Owaisi, welcomed the ruling by the Supreme Court. He said, “I had demanded that the Haj subsidy should be done away with. Under the garb of subsidy, the entire amount is going to Air India.” He, however, asked, “But why should it take 10 years? Besides, an amount of Rs 600 crore should be given to the minority welfare ministry for educating Muslims.”