LAHORE: Questions in the Haj application requiring the candidates to mention their sect have been challenged before the Lahore High Court for being in violation of the Constitution.

In a “public interest litigation” petition filed on behalf of an applicant, Barrister Maqsooma Zahra Bokhari argues that the questions posed to the applicants about disclosing their sects are discriminatory and in sheer violation of Article 20 of the Constitution.

She says the impugned questions show lack of transparency in selecting Haj applicants, allowing the Ministry of Religious Affairs to pick and choose candidates.

The lawyer states that the said questions are not asked on the instructions of the Saudi government nor is it being posed for the purposes of ‘Mehram’ as the Haj Form itself states very clearly that irrespective of a woman being Shia or Hanafi, she must be accompanied by a male Mehram.

Therefore, she pleads, that asking the impugned questions seems completely irrelevant for selecting applicants for Haj. She prays to the court to issue an appropriate declaration that the impugned questions posed in Haj forms i.e., whether an applicant is a Shia or not as irrelevant, irrational, unlawful, illegal, discriminatory and violative to the constitutional guarantees.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2015

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