BENGALURU: The High Court adjourned hearing on public interest litigation challenging the celebration of Tipu Jayanti on November 10 by the state government to Tuesday.The petition, filed by K P Manjunath from Kodagu, sought the court to quash the government’s circular dated October 24 issued to celebrate Tipu Jayanti across the state, especially in Kodagu. The petitioner alleged that Tipu had killed hundreds of Kodavas and carried out religious conversions too. The plea was heard by a division bench of Acting Chief Justice H G Ramesh and Justice P S Dinesh Kumar.
Justice H G Ramesh asked the counsel, “What is the global scenario? Can you give examples of birthdays being celebrated in other countries?” To this, the counsel said that former US president Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was a national holiday in the USA. The Chief Justice asked what were the parameters for the judiciary to pass a judgement in the case. “Someone else might come and say no to Kanaka Jayanti. We cannot sit and pass judgements over all jayantis,” he said.
The counsel said if a painful incident had occurred in 1792 — the year when Tipu allegedly carried out forcible conversion of Kodavas to Muslims — it was a short period in terms of history. The Chief Justice said the celebration had to be contrary to law for them to intervene and observed that the main grounds for the PIL were whether the expenditure on the event was permissible by law and no other grounds were accepted by the bench.
On the claim that the event hurts public sentiment, he observed, “The Constitution of India reflects the will of the entire India but the governments of the day reflect the will of the majority.”