The Government is compiling a list of persons aged over 65 who have applied to go on Haj for the fifth time in a row this year under the allotted quota to be sent to Saudi Arabia for the annual pilgrimage. This follows a direction passed by the Supreme Court on Tuesday asking the Centre to find out how many persons fall in this category. Once the Court sees the list, it may consider granting certain exemptions under the present Haj Policy 2018 to enable aged persons who have waited for four years to go for the pilgrimage.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra passed the order on an application moved by Kerala government challenging the Centre's Haj policy. The state is the worst affected due to the Centre's decision to uniformly allocate the Haj quota among all states.
A rough estimate suggests that Kerala has about 13311 persons who have applied for the fifth time this year. Of this, it is not known how many persons are aged above 65 years.
The top court clarified that it was as part of an ad-interim measure it was seeking the details from the Centre till it is to consider the petition by the Kerala Haj Committee challenging the state-wise quota policy for Haj pilgrims as being discriminatory.
Kerala had alleged that last year it got 6,324 seats against 95,000 applicants for Haj. The matter will be heard next on February 19.
