Allahabad High Court asks UP govt to respond to plea against ban on Urs in Bahraich

Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to respond to a plea seeking direction to the district administration of Bahraich to allow the annual Urs at the Dargah of Syed Salar Masood Ghazi.

The Urs is scheduled to start from May 15. The writ petition filed on behalf of Waqf No. 19 Dargah Sharif, Bahraich, challenged the order of the district magistrate that disallowed the holding of the Urs this year.

A Lucknow bench of Justices Rajan Roy and O P Shukla fixed the next hearing on May 14.

Senior advocate L P Mishra, appearing on behalf of Dargah Sharif, argued that this Dargah was established in 1375 AD by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in the memory of Syed Salar Masood Ghazi.

For a long time, a month-long Urs is held here every year in the Hindu month of Jyestha (May-June), in which four to five lakh people from India and abroad come.

Advocate Mishra argued that the district magistrate has no right to stop the Urs because under an order issued on April 1, 1987, the administration itself is duty-bound to make arrangements for the Urs.

Opposing the petition, it was said that the Urs is held within a radius of about five km. The order given by the District Magistrate is based on the report of the local intelligence unit (LIU) and other departments. It was said that there is no ban on holding Urs within the Dargah.

When advocate Mishra told the court that he was informed by his associate advocate Syed Hussain that the area of 1.5 square kilometres around the Dargah belongs to the Dargah itself, the court asked him for the documents registered in the name of the Dargah.

At this, Mishra sought time to present the documents. The court granted time and fixed the next hearing on May 14.