Seven-member MLA panel formed to give report on Namaz room: Jharkhand Assembly to HC

Ranchi: The Jharkhand Assembly informed the high court that a seven-member legislators' committee has been formed to give a report on the allocation of a Namaz room in the assembly. The committee is gathering inputs from other states with regard to similar allotment of rooms to members of a community for offering prayers, it said on Thursday.

The court was hearing a PIL on the allocation of a Namaz room in the assembly filed by one Ajay Kumar Modi. The case will be heard again on June 22. The court was informed that the committee will submit its report by July 31. Earlier, while hearing the PIL on May 2, a division bench of Chief Justice Sanjaya Kumar Mishra and Justice Ananda Sen had asked for an affidavit in the matter.

In the PIL, it was alleged that allotment of a room for prayer to members of a community amounts to the violation of the fundamental rights of others. The equal right to religion has been breached, it was alleged. Room TW 348 was allotted for offering Namaz in September 2021, leading to protests by the opposition BJP, which then demanded a Hanuman temple on the assembly premises.