Ismael Faruqui v/s. Union of India
- Mayank Raj Pranav, GNLU Gandhinagar
- December 25, 2020
Content :
In the 1994 case, the apex court had held that namaz could be offered anywhere and that a mosque was not necessary for this. It had also ruled that the government could, therefore, acquire the land that a mosque is built on. In this case, the petitioner, Ismail Faruqui, had challenged the validity of the Acquisition of Certain Area At Ayodhya Act, 1993, under which 67.703 acres were acquired in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid complex in Ayodhya.
The apex court, upholding the government’s acquisition, had held “any step taken to arrest escalation of communal tension… can, by no stretch of argumentation, be termed non-secular… or against the concept of secularism — a creed of the Indian people embedded in the ethos.”
Declaring that namaz could be offered anywhere, the Supreme Court had said:
“Mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz (prayer) by Muslims can be offered anywhere, even in open. Accordingly, its acquisition is not prohibited by the provisions in the Constitution of India.”
