The Supreme Court has dismissed the plea as withdrawn seeking Directions to waive off the cost of Rs 50K imposed by the Apex Court on the petition filed by Syed Waseem Rizvi against some verses in the Holy Quran alleging those verses violates the law of land, promote extremism and terrorism and pose a serious threat to the sovereignty, unity & integrity of the Country.
Today the matter was listed before the bench of Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, KM Joseph, and BR Gavai. Petitioner’s counsel A Deb Kumar prayed for withdrawal of his application for waving off the cost.
The bench asked when he will pay the fine?
The counsel informed his client has filed a review against the said order and also discharged him from the case.
Following which the Court has dismissed the application.
On April 12, 2021, a three-judge bench of Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, B.R. Gavai & Hrishikesh Roy had dismissed plea and also imposed a hefty fine of Rs 50k on the petitioner while terming PIL as “absolutely frivolous”.
The review petition filed on May 11 has not yet been listed
Through his PIL, the petitioner Rizvi had claimed that these verses were added to the holy book of Muslims later. “These verses were added to the Quran, by the first three Caliphs, to aid the expansion of Islam by war and these verses promoted violence”, it alleged.
According to the petitioner, “terrorists use these verses to fuel jihad”. “these verses are used to mislead the young Muslims generation, provoking them to become radicals and terrorists resulting in the massacre of millions of innocents,” he further alleged.
In the review petition, Rizvi has contended that SC dismissed the petition without taking into consideration the very important factum that “radicalization is increasing in our country with a very fast pace and we are heading towards another partition of the country in the near future”.
“The questions raised by the Reviewer/Petitioner in his Public Interest Petition are very important and significant for the safety, security, peace, harmony, unity, integrity and sovereignty of the country and deserve to be considered in detail in the open Court…this Hon’ble court over-looked the issue relating to national security and without considering the arguments advanced on behalf of the Petitioner”, the review petition contends
The petition says: ”Not only this, the reviewer/petitioner is receiving life-threatening calls on day to day basis for the last over three months from the extremist/fundamentalist elements, who have no respect for law and openly use derogatory and filthy language against the Reviewer/Petitioner and threaten to kill him by cutting his throat”.