The Supreme Court on Friday turned down a request to declare the Hindu scripture Bhagwad Gita as a national text. Dismissing a PIl filed by advocate MK Balakrishnan, the bench headed by Chief Justice Hl Dattu said that such a demand cannot be entertained particularly in a country where citizens have their own mindset with regard to which religion to choose and which religious text to follow. “In this country every citizen has his own mindset. One may call Bhagwad Gita a sacred text while another may not accept it at all,” said the bench, also comprising Justices MY Eqbal and Arun Mishra.
The petitioner said that his demand was based on the good things written in Gita which can serve as a panacea for all situations in life. “It even answers a lot of questions of law,” the lawyer argued. The bench reasoned that in a country with diverse religious views, this demand cannot hold good. “Everybody wants to make his religious text as the sacred book. Others may say I don’t believe in this book. It is not the job of this Court to do this.