Supreme Court has rejected the plea of a Muslim student in a Christian missionary school that he be allowed to sport a beard to conform with his religious beliefs.Justice Markandeya Katju, in delivering the judgment on behalf of a bench of the court two days ago, said: “I am secularist. We should strike a balance between rights and personal beliefs. We cannot overstretch secularism.”
The judge added: “We don’t want Talibans (sic) in the country.
“Tomorrow, a girl student may come and say that she wants to wear a burqa. Can we allow it?”
The Madhya Pradesh High Court had earlier dismissed the student’s plea.
The student maintained that every citizen was entitled to follow his religious principles and that no one should stop him from doing so in a secular country like India.
When his counsel, Mr. B.A. Khan, a Muslim, argued that sporting a beard was an indispensable part of Islam, the judge pointedly noted: “But you don’t sport a beard.”
The court said that if the student was not interested in following the rules of the school, he had the option of joining another 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,’ the judge said.
The country’s Supreme Court is currently hearing a petition by Muslim airman Mohammed Zubair, who is challenging a ‘confidential order’ of the Indian Air Force (IAF) which prohibits Muslim personnel from sporting beards.
The Delhi High Court had earlier dismissed his plea.
The government had, in response to a notice from the court, justified the order, saying it was “issued in the interest of cohesiveness in a combatant force like the IAF and also keeping in view the security implications”.
It also said the policy was “secular in character”.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court last year dismissed a similar petition by two Muslim air force personnel who had sought permission to grow beards while in service.
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