Centre asked to respond over 'Islamic' flags issue

The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to respond within two weeks to a plea by the chairman of the Shia Waqf Board for a ban on hoisting green flags with a crescent and a star at buildings and religious places across the country.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose gave two weeks to Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to file the response to the writ petition filed by Syed Waseem Rizvi.

Appearing for Rizvi, senior advocate S P Singh sought a direction for a notice on the issue, but the court posted the matter for consideration after two weeks.

Rizvi, in his plea, claimed that green flags with a crescent and a star are "un-Islamic" and resemble the flag of a Pakistani political party.

He claimed in his plea that during his visit to Mumbai and other places in the country, he saw flags on several buildings and religious structures, allegedly causing tension between the Hindu and Muslim communities.

The plea alleged that the flags resembled the flags of the Pakistan Muslim League, which belongs to an "enemy country".

It claimed that the crescent star flags in green owe their origin to the erstwhile political party, Muslim League, founded by Nawaz Waqar Ul-Malik and Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1906. These days, it was being used by Indian Muslims who were treating it as an Islamic flag, it added.

Such flags are being hoisted in Muslim-dominated areas with "utmost impunity", the plea said, claiming that the crescent and star in a green backdrop have never been part of any Islamic practice and do not have any role or significance in Islam.