Haj Subsidy Only once in a lifetime for Muslims – Government files affidavit in Supreme Court of India

Updated on Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Bombay High court gave the judgment directing the Ministry of External Affairs to allow certain private operators to operate the services of 800 of the 11,000 pilgrims earmarked under the VIP quota subsidized by the government.

After that Government filed appeal in the Supreme Court of India
challenging a Bombay High Court judgment

A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai had directed the Centre to provide details of subsidy given by it and criteria adopted for allocation of seats to state committees.

Supreme court frowned at the practice of sending official delegations to accompany the pilgrims and had asked the Centre to furnish entire details regarding Haj subsidy, as also to the criteria adopted.

Earlier, the bench had pulled up the Centre’s practice of ‘politicizing’ the annual Haj pilgrimage by permitting official delegations to accompany the pilgrims, for, which the government offers huge subsidy, saying, “It’s a bad religious practice.”

After this Government of India filed an affidavit and informed to supreme court of India that it has decided to restrict Haj pilgrimage at government subsidy to Muslims only as a ‘once in a lifetime’ affair as against the existing policy of ‘once in five years’.

In an affidavit filed before the apex court, the government said the new guidelines have been framed to ensure that priority is given to those applicants who have never performed Haj.

According to the government, priority will be given to those who are in the 70 plus category and those who had unsuccessfully applied thrice earlier for the subsidy.

Restrict the number of pilgrimages to a Haj applicant through HCOI (Haj Committee of India) to ‘once in a lifetime’ as against the existing ‘once in five years’. This will ensure that the Haji will benefit from government subsidy only once in his/her lifetime. It will also ensure that priority is given to those applicants who have never performed Haj,”

Government refrained or [did not give] from disclosing the amount of subsidy being incurred by it for 2012.

"The exact figure in respect of the travel subsidy to the pilgrims going through Haj Committee of India for 2012 will be known after the Hajis completed their Haj journey and return to India."

Why only 2012
I think government should publish Year wise the list of last 25 years mentioning the subsidy amount spend on Haj with the names of persons who took benefit of the scheme to do Haj.

Updated on Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Supreme Court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai told to government that "You have suggested that you will reduce it to one plus nine, but we want it at one plus three or four and that should be also be discontinued in the next few years,"

Justice Alam said the visit by the goodwill delegation was started in 1967 but it became VIP quota and was not in conformity with religious duty.

The goodwill delegation that first went in 1967 had three members which peaked to 35 in 2005.

The court was told that the subsidy per Haji was Rs 38,800 in 2011 which was Rs 5,000 17 years back in 1994.

The total Haj subsidy in 2011 was Rs 685 Crore, while it was Rs 10.51 Crore in 1994.

In the current year 1, 70,000 Hajis would be going from India to Makkah. In 2011 the total number of Indian Hajis who travelled to Makkah was 1, 70,491.

Updated on Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Supreme Court of India today ordered the government to phase out its policy of giving subsidies to Haj pilgrims in next 10 years.

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Sunday, April 15, 2012

Tags - Haj Muslim Once in a life time