HC dismisses petition to stop Hindu spiritual fair

A division bench, comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice P Rajamanickam, before whom the plea came up for hearing on Thursday observed that worship is a secular aspect and that the PIL was devoid of any merit.

Also, the bench on citing Supreme Court orders said, in the event of a public interest litigation being moved by an advocate, adequate research ought to be done before filing the petition. He said the advocate within a week of filing a complaint regards in this aspect to the state had rushed to the court with a PIL.

The petitioner AG Narasimhan had contended that Guru Nanak College has availed the services of Hindu Seva Arakkattalai to hold Hindu Sevai Kankatchi (Hindu Spiritual Exhibition) until February 4 in a bid to promote a religion.

Noting that the college was misusing its minority status in holding such a programme, the plea said the Constitution gives privileges to minorities to protect their religion, language and culture but not to the majority religion.

But the said college on getting Government aid on one side by virtue of being a minority institution is unconstitutionally permitting these kinds of functions for the purpose of promoting a majority religion, the plea said and noted that the allowing the college to procced with such an exhibition under the shelter of minority institution would set a strong precedent to other such minority educational institutions in following suit.

Based on this, the plea besides seeking stalling of the exhibition underway at Guru Nanak College also sought for a direction to the state to abstain from permitting these kinds per motivational functions at all the government aided and private institutes across the state.