In what came as music to the ears of the activists agitating against a ban on the entry of women into various places of worship across the country, the BJP-led Maharashtra Government on Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that it was in favour of women entering the sanctum sanctorum of the iconic Haji Ali Dargah at Worli in South-Central Mumbai.
In a submission made before a HC division Bench of Justice VM Kanade and Justice Revati Mohite Dere, the State Advocate-General said that the trustees of Haji Ali Dargah could in no way prevent women from entering the sanctum sanctorum of the famous shrine.
Arguing against gender discrimination at the Haji Ali Dargah, the State Advocate-General told the HC Bench that unless the Dargah Board could prove that the ban was part of religious practice prescribed in the Holy Quran, women should be allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum.
After hearing arguments of the parties concerned, the two-member HC Bench asked all parties to submit their arguments in writing in two weeks and reserved its ruling in the case.
The Maharashtra Gover-nment made its submission before on the basis of a directive given to it on February 3.
The HC was hearing a public interest litigation challenging the rule imposed by the Haji Ali Dargah trust which bars entry of women in the ‘sanctum sanctorum’ of the Dargah which houses the tomb of the 15th century Sufi saint Haji Ali.
Earlier on January 18, the Bombay HC had bought some more time to give its ruling on a petition challenging the ban on the entry of women, saying that it would wait for the Supreme Court’s verdict on the entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala.
The petition filed in the Bombay High Court is similar to the one being heard by the Supreme Court.
In the apex court, the petitioners have sought entry for all women and girls in the Sabarimala temple which, as a practice, does not allow girls after attaining puberty to enter the premises. The temple, however, allows only those women to enter who have reached the menopause stage.
Two months after it had expressed reluctance to sit in judgement over the ban on women in Haji Ali Dargah, a HC Bench of Justices VM Kanade and Reveti Mohite-Dere said it would wait for a ruling by the apex court on the entry of women in Sabarimala temple of Kerala before deciding on a similar plea in the dargah’s case.
At the earlier hearing held on November 17, 2015, Justice Kanade had said: “Today the atmosphere is such that everything is taken in another way. This is an era of intolerance. When it comes to religious matters people become very sensitive”. He had advised the parties involved to settle the issue outside the court.
In the Haji Ali Dargah case the trustees had told the court that entry of women in close proximity to the grave of a male Muslim saint was considered as a grievous sin in Islam.
The trust also justified the move to ban the entry saying the ban was to protect women from “uncomfortable situations”.
However, the petitioners have claimed that gender justice was inherent in the Holy Quran and the norm at the Dargah contravenes the Hadiths, which said that women were not prohibited from visiting tombs. “The restriction comes from a very conservative and extremist Salafi ideology” and in future “there may be an order banning the entry of women in the Dargah complex and banning the non-Muslims wholly,” the petition argued.
Raju Moray, the petitioners’ lawyer, told the court that at other shrines women are not banned. “Women can enter the sanctum sanctorum at the historic Makhdoom Shah Dargah in suburban Mahim,” Moray said.