SC rejects Centre’s plea on Hajj discretionary quota

 Friday, July 27, 2012: The Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain the Centre’s request to defer till next year its July 23 order limiting the government’s discretionary quota for Hajj pilgrims.


A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai refused to accede to the government plea, put forward by Attorney General G E Vahanvati and counsel Harris Beran to defer its order till next year. Vahanvati made the submission at the fag end of the hearing of a bunch of petitions by private tour operators (PTOs), who have challenged certain norms fixed by the government for the operators.


On July 23, the top court had drastically reduced the government’s discretionary and dignitaries quota seats for Hajj 2012 pilgrims to 300 from the proposed 5,050 seats and had hoped they would be allotted on “reasonable basis”.


During today’s hearing, the bench maintained that there could be no monopolisation and asked the Centre to frame a fresh PTOs policy for the annual Hajj pilgrimage from next year onwards. The court asked the AG to come out with a new policy for permitting fresh players in private transport sector. “We know that the present policy is not perfect. But we do not want to interfere with this years policy,” Justice Alam observed.