A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday admitted a writ petition seeking a directive to the Centre to constitute an impartial agency for conducting an effective investigation into the alleged irregularities in the allotment of quota for the Haj pilgrimage to private tour operators from 2004 to 2009.
The Bench, consisting of Chief Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice C.N. Ramachandran Nair, admitting the petition, issued notice to E. Ahamed, Union Minister of State for Railways, the Central and State governments and the Central and State Haj committees.
According to the petitioner, Khalid Mundappilly from Aluva, the Haj, a religious worship for Muslims, had now become a multi-crore business for private tour operators. The Saudi government, which regulated the pilgrimage, stipulated certain quota for each country. The Central and State Haj committees made arrangements for the travel, stay and safe return of the pilgrims. He said private tour operators entered the scene in 2001 when they were allowed to fly 50 to 500 pilgrims. When the United Progressive Alliance government came to power in 2004, Mr. Ahamed was made Union Minister of State for External Affairs and was in charge of Haj pilgrimage. The petitioner said Mr. Ahamed, who had ‘close connections' with private tour operator Al Hind, started doling out quotas to certain tour operators. The petitioner alleged that this particular tour operator was allotted 1,700 pilgrims when the Ministry's guidelines allowed only 500. Tour operators from Mumbai and Kozhikode were favoured, leading to a fraudulent practice of getting registered in different names and usurping quotas in excess.
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He pointed that while the Central Haj Committee, in reply to an application under the Right to Information Act, said the External Affairs Ministry had dealt with the additional quota granted by the Saudi government last year, the Ministry informed the petitioner that it was allotted to the Haj Committee. Thus, it had created suspicion that the additional quota had not been distributed fairly and transparently.