Our Correspondent /New Delhi
The Supreme Court Thursday Thursday ruled that Muslim personnel cannot keep beards by citing religious grounds in the Indian Air Force (IAF).
Rejecting a plea by a IAF personnel seeking to grow beard, apex court said that IAF’s policies on personal appearance were not intended to discriminate against religious beliefs.
Rejecting the plea by Mohammed Zubair, Chief Justice T.S. Thakur, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and Justice L. Nageswara Rao said: “Regulation and policies in regard to personal appearances are not intended to discriminate against religious beliefs nor do they have the affect of doing so”.
Mohammed Zubair who had joined the Indian Air Force on December 19, 2001, has been discharged from service. He had challenged September 20, 2005, direction to shave off his beards.
“Their (regulation and policies) object and purpose is to ensure uniformity, cohesiveness, discipline and order which are indispensable to the air force as indeed to every armed force,” the ruling said.
Zubair had applied for permission to sport a beard on January 10, 2005 and the same was rejected by the Air Officer Commanding the next month.
Speaking for the bench, Justice Chandrachud said, “India is a secular nation in which every religion must be treated with equality. In the context of the Armed Forces, which comprise of men and women following a multitude of faiths the needs of secular India are accommodated by recognising right of worship and by respecting religious beliefs” .
“Yet in a constitutional sense it cannot be overlooked that the overarching necessity of a Force which has been raised to protect the nation is to maintain discipline”, the judgment said.
That is why, the court said that “ the Constitution in the provisions of Article 33 stipulates that Parliament may by law determine to what extent the fundamental rights … shall stand restricted or abrogated in relation inter alia to the members of the Armed Forces so as to ensure the proper discharge of their duties and the maintenance of discipline among them.”
The petitioner Zuber had moved the top court challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court judgment which held that maintaining a beard was not an integral part of the religion professed by him.
The High Court had further held that since the matter pertained to the Armed Forces where a certain degree of discipline had to be maintained and the rules and regulations broadly accommodate “the basic interest of various religions in a secular manner”.