The Supreme Court, which in a judgement given in May 2011 had recommended the “phasing out” of the subsidy for Haj pilgrim to Muslims, on Monday slammed the government proposal for fixing a “discretionary” quota of 5,050 passengers to be recommended by the VIPs and instead fixed it at 300 by specifying the VIPs clearly. A bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai, which had given the verdict on phasing out the subsidy on May 8, fixed the quota of 100 passengers for the President, 75 each to the vice-president and Prime Minister and 50 for external affairs minister.
The court directed that the remaining quota proposed by the government be quashed and those seats for air travel be shifted to the general pool.
The proposal of 5,050 quota seats for VIPs was presented by the Centre in an affidavit filed by the Centre with details how it should be divided among different states, which included quota for chief ministers also.
However, the top court said that the Haj committee could also recommend the names of 200 pilgrims for subsidised travel to Mecca and Medina. The government though had proposed 11,000 total seats to be recommended by government agencies but 5,050 were to be kept in “discretionary” category.
Though the Saudi Arabia every year fixes the number of Haj pilgrims, the authorities there have permitted travel of 1.25 lakh people from India, the top court was informed.
The top court had taken serious view of “misuse” of quota seats by politicians and bureaucrats while citing how they had “travelled” as part of official delegation to Mecca and Median on subsidised rate in the past in droves.