Refusing to overturn a ban on outsiders entering the Taj Mahal complex in Agra for namaz or Friday prayers, the Supreme Court has said the monument “is among the seven wonders of the world” and needs to be protected.
The Supreme Court dismissed a plea challenging the Agra authority’s order debarring non-residents of the city from offering Friday prayers at a mosque in the Taj Mahal complex. A bench of justices AK Sikri and Ashok Bhushan said the monument was one of the Seven Wonders of the World and it cannot be “decimated”.
The observed that there were several other mosques in Agra and the non-residents could offer the customary prayers there. “This is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and we do not want this to decimate. We are dismissing it (plea),” the bench said.
The bench was hearing the PIL filed by Syed Ibrahim Hussain Zaidi, president of the Taj Mahal Masjid Management Committee, who was challenging a January 24 order of Agra’s additional district magistrate (city) barring non-residents from offering Friday prayers in the mosque on the grounds of security of Taj Mahal.
Zaidi’s lawyer contended that the executive order discriminated between residents and non-residents, and said that everyone should be permitted to go inside the mosque and offer prayers.
Source: Hindustan Times
