Madras High Court Leaves It To Haj Committtee To Decide On Including Chennai As Pilgrim Embarkation Point

A bench comprising Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy stated that if found appropriate, the Haj Committee may take a decision to make necessary amendments in the guidelines to include other embarkation points, keeping in mind the recommendations of the State Government and the number of persons who travel for the Haj from any of the embarkation points.

Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram, appearing for the state submitted that recommendations have been sent to the Haj Committee to include Chennai Airport as one the embarkation points

In their petition, the Popular Front of India represented by Mr. I Abdul Basith alleged that the respondent, Haj Committee of India, had unilaterally and arbitrarily reduced the Embarkation Points for Haj 2022 from twenty one to ten without consulting the Government of the States and the Union Territories. It is further stated that while all other major southern states have been allocated with embarkation points – Bangalore in Karnataka, Cochin in Kerala and Hyderabad in Telangana, in spite of availability of an International Airport in Chennai, the committee has excluded Chennai without any rhyme and reason and has allocated Cochin Airport as embarkation point for pilgrims from Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Andaman and Nicobar.

They further submitted that through this order the Haj pilgrims are made to travel more than 700 kms away from Chennai, Puducherry and other parts of Tamil Nadu to Cochin which will cause severe physical hardship to the pilgrims. Further, making all these people travel to cochin would make Covid protocol a mockery.

It was further contented that even after return of normalcy after the pandemic and the relaxation of the international travel restriction, such a decision is nothing but a clear case of arbitrariness and discrimination at the hand of the respondents.

Mr Haja Moideen Gisthi, standing counsel for the Haj Committee submitted that the recommendations of the State have been received and is under consideration. He further submitted tat the embarkation for the Haj pilgrims would be in the month of August 2022 with the visa processing schedules to commence in the month of April. He also submitted that the guidelines were issues in view of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Considering all the submissions, the court decided not to issue a definite order against the guidelines as they were passed in view of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was not for the court to decide on the policy decisions taken by the Haj Committee.

The court also highlighted that if the plea of the petitioner is accepted regarding hardship in travelling 700-800 km to reach Cochin which is inconvenient and costly, the same plea could be taken from pilgrims from states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Haryana as well.

Case Title: Popular Front of India v. Haj Committee of India and Ors

Case No: W.P 8645 of 2022

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (Mad) 145

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