Delhi HC seeks Centre's response on PIL challenging decision to allow only Central Police Force as Haj Officers

New Delhi [India], April 5 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought responses on a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging a memorandum by the Ministry of Minority Affairs which allows only Central Police Force employees to travel to Saudi Arabia to serve as Officers and Assistants during the Haj 2023 pilgrimage period.

The Bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chander Sharma also comprising Justice Subramonium directed all respondents to file their responses in the matter and fixed the matter on May 10 this year for further hearing.

A petitioner seeking direction to the Ministry of Minority Affairs to amend the Office Memorandum which was issued on March 20 this year to the extent of giving an opportunity to all Muslim employees of Centre, State and Union territories (UTs).

The petition termed it a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and hence unconstitutional.

The plea has been moved by Advocate Aslam Ahmed and Advocate Raees Ahmed for the petitioner Aamir Javed.

It stated that the present Petition is being filed on the basis that other central or State Government/UTs administration employees are not eligible for any deputation in the Office Memorandum dated 20.03.2023, which earlier was a practice of the Government of India to send male and female members of the Muslim community who are employees of various Government department on deputation for the temporary basis to Consulate General of India, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to render assistance to Haj pilgrims as Coordinators (Admin), Assistant Haj Officers (AHO) and Haj Assistants (HA) for Haj, stated the plea.

Advocate Aslam Ahmed stated that Muslim employees working in other states and departments have been prohibited this time from serving in the deputation team for the Haj 2023 period.

The PIL petitioner Aamir Javed claimed that he had addressed a communique dated 23 March 2023 to the Minority Affairs Minister and had appealed to the ministry to amend the impugned Office Memorandum/Order and allow the employees of all the States/UTs and departments, for the purpose of applying to the deputation service, in line with the constitutionally guaranteed right. However, no response or assistance was received from the Ministry in this regard, claimed the petitioner.

The plea further stated that the operation of the impugned Office Memorandum/Order causes discrimination volte-face between Government employees, at the outset.

Speaking in this regard, Delhi High Court Advocate Raees Ahmed, a former member of the Delhi Minority Commission stated that, if the employees are not selected from all the states, the pilgrims will face linguistic problems during the Haj pilgrimage period. Hajis from all the States of India go to perform Haj, and all of them do not know English, Hindi or Urdu and many of the Hajis speak regional states' languages. Therein, it is difficult to ascertain how these regional language-speaking Hajis will be prejudiced, and deeply affected. In fact, the Haj Committee and the Consulate General of India at Jeddah will also face this linguistic problem as well as an inconvenience which in turn will have a domino effect to the millions of pilgrims going from India.