The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed as withdrawn a petition filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking similar rights for Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs to administer their religious places without State interference like Muslims, Parsis and Christians.
The Bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra refused to entertain the plea on grounds that it needed to raise more specific prayers to be considered by the court.
The Apex Court, however, did not dismiss other petitions tagged with Upadhyay’s PIL, which raised specific reliefs for a uniform endowment code.
The Bench granted time to the Central government in those matters, to file a response.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government, urged the Apex Court to separate Upadhyay’s plea from the rest of the petitions.
He said the Government would file a response in other matters within a week.
The SG alleged that Advocate Upadhyay was doing this just for popularity.
Filed by Advocate Upadhyay, the petition sought similar rights to
Hindus, Jains, Buddhist and Sikhs to establish, manage and maintain the religious places.
The petition further sought rights to the above communities to own, acquire and administer movable and immovable properties of their religious places on the lines of Muslims and Christians.
It further stated that all laws made to administer properties of temples and gurdwaras were arbitrary and violated Article 14, 15, and 26.
As per the plea, if necessary, the court should direct the Central government or the Law Commission of India to draft a common charter for religious and charitable institutions and Uniform Code for Religious and Charitable Endowments.