SC seeks Centre's reply on Shia Waqf Board's plea against 'unIslamic' flags

New Delhi: The Supreme Court today asked the Centre to respond to the Shia Waqf Board chairman’s plea seeking a ban on hoisting green flags with a crescent and a star at buildings and religious places across the country.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked the counsel for Shia Waqf Board chairman Syed Waseem Rizvi to serve a copy of the petition to Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta to enable him file a reply on behalf of the Centre. Rizvi, in his plea, has claimed that green flags with a crescent and a star are “un-Islamic” and resemble the flag of a Pakistani political party. 

He also 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. In the present day, 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.