religion
A Bombay high court bench of justices VM Kanade and Revati Mohite Dere had held on Friday (26 August) that the ban on women entering the sanctum sanctorum of the Haji Ali Dargah of Mumbai, contravened Articles 14, 15 and 25 of the Constitution.
Court No 4 witnessed interesting arguments concerning the scope of India’s secularism before justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant, in the case of The State of Gujarat and others vs Islamic Relief Committee, Gujarat (IRCG) and another.
NGO workers attacked by a violent mob, saved by police, then arrested by them.
Advocate Lawrence Liang, part of the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum, has issued a legal notice to Penguin India, claiming that the publisher has violated freedom of speech laws and readers’ rights by agreeing to destroy all copies of Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus.
In settlement of a civil and two criminal suits brought by a religious group against Penguin Books India, the publisher has agreed to withdraw and destroy all copies of a history book on Hinduism.
The Bombay High Court said that the right to practice a religion did not guarantee the right to access public property to do so. The court said there was no need for the petitioner to visit a Hanuman temple in Mumbai’s Colaba district that lay on land restricted by the Navy for security reasons. “Why this particular temple? It means you want to create trouble,” said Justice Deshmukh according to the Indian Express. “There are many Hanuman temples. Any Hanuman mandir is good enough.” The petitioner’s lawyers unsuccessfully invoked article 25 of the Constitution giving the right to profess practise and propagate religion.