A petition was filed in Supreme Court by Farha Anwar,a resident of Pune seeking entry of Muslim Women in Mosques In India.As a response to the Plea,The Supreme Court of India has issues notice to Central Government and other parties including Central Waqf Board Council,Jamiat Ulama I Hind, All India Muslim Personal Law Board,Darul Uloom Deoband.The Supreme Court has issued the norice seeking directions for muslim women to enter the Mosques across the Country.
Farha who filed the petition in February lives in Dapodi along with her husband who works in a private bank and Two children.She does an Online trading business.Her husband is also the head of Noor Welfare Association which is an organisation that helps to fund the needy people.
Initially,the petition was supposed to be heard in March 2020 which got extended due to the lockdown and the Global Pandemic.On May 20,She appeared before the Supreme Court Via Video Conferencing.The petition was filed through Adv.Sandeep Tiwari and Rameshwar Goyal.
Farha Anwar has started a legal battle against the restriction for women entering the mosques.
In an interview with a newspaper,Farha described the incident that compelled her to file the petition.Earlier a day,during the time of holy month of Ramzan,Farha was not allowed to offer namaz while her Husband was allowed to pray due to which she had stand outside in the rain waiting for her husband.
Her husband,Anwar said that there is no provision in Quran or Islam that prevents women from entering the Mosques.He took examples of mosques of Saudi Arabia,Canada and some of the other states in Kerala where muslim women are allowed to enter the mosque without any restriction.Before aproaching the Supreme Court,they had already addressed the issue and their need to local and State authorities and Commissions for which they recieved no satisfactory responses or Actions.
Farha in her petition seeks direction in nature of Mandamus to declare the practice of Prohibiting women from entering the mosque as Unconstitutional.The petition also seeks to the fact that Neither prophet nor Quran had opposed women from entering the Mosque and says that such a prohibition is also violative of Fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India.Article 14,15,21,25,29 etc are violated through this restriction,he said.
The petitioners also pointed out the statement made by Supreme Court while reading while reading the Sabarimala Judgement that, ”Religion cannot be used as cover to deny rights of worship to women and it is also against human dignity. Prohibition on women is due to non-religious reasons and it is a grim shadow of discrimination going on for centuries.”
The petition was heard by a bench of Honourable Justices A S Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy,who after hearing the matter issued notice to ten bodies seeking direction.The matter will be next heard on July 6 2020.
by Ayisha Riswana
