BENGALURU: “We are not persuade to accept the arguments that an invitation to a person of different faith violate constitutional or legal right,” the Karnataka High Court said while pronouncing its operative portion of the order on Monday while dismissing three public interest litigations filed by former MP Prathap Simha and two others against extending invitation to Booker awardee Banu Mustaq to inaugurate Dasara.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice C.M. Joshi passed the order after hearing the arguments of the counsels of the petitioners and the state government.
The petitions were filed by Pratap Simha, a former Member of Parliament from Mysuru, Girish Kumar T and Sowmya R from Bengaluru and H.S. Gaurav from Bengaluru.
The petitioners counsels contended that Banu Mustaq has no faith in a Hindu religion and she made anti-Hindu and Kannada deity Bhuvaneshwari. If she withdraws those remarks and apologise, we have no objections to inauguration of Dasara on September 22 by her, they argued.
On the other hand, the state government defended its decision to invite Banu Mustaq, saying that she has clarified about her objectionable statements after she was invited. More over the decision was taken unanimously in the committee comprising representatives of all political parties.
The government also submitted that the former MP Prathap Simha did not oppose the inauguration of Dasara by well known poet Nissar Ahmed in 2017.
However, Simha’s counsel argued that Ahmed did not made any remarks against Hindu religion and Kannada deity.