Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chandigarh
The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday issued notice to Congress candidate from Faridkot (reserved) parliamentary seat Mohammad Sadiq on a petition seeking directions to the returning officer against accepting his nomination papers for the 2019 General elections on the ground that he was ineligible to contest. Directions were also sought for cancelling the Schedule Caste certificate issued to him by the state government.
In his plea placed before the Bench of Chief Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Arun Palli, petitioner Kamaljit Singh of Moga submitted that any individual born a Muslim could not be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste. This was more so as Islam by its very nature did not recognise any caste system. Therefore,any individual born or professing Islam could not claim to be a member of any caste whatsoever.
“An individual not belonging to a religion not practicing caste system cannot convert to a religion practicing caste system and take upon himself a particular caste as that would be a fraud on the Constitution as has been held by the Supreme Court in Lily Thomas and others versus Union of India and others.
“Sadiq, who was born a Muslim in 1939 and continued to profess Islam for most of his life till 2006-07 when he issued a declaration of having become a Sikh in a newspaper proclamation and sought himself to be declared as an SC,” the petitioner argued. The case will now come up for hearing on September 12.
