Supreme Court dismisses plea seeking to transport mortal remains of Sufi saint from Bangladesh to India

The Supreme Courtroom on Friday dismissed a petition searching for transportation of the mortal stays of Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Muhammad Abdul Muqtadir Shah Masood Ahmad from Bangladesh to India.

A 3-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud said there isn’t a constitutionally enforceable proper to hunt transportation of the Sufi saint’s mortal stays as he was a Pakistani citizen. Mentioning that Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Muhammad Abdul Muqtadir Shah Masood Ahmad was a Pakistani citizen, the bench additionally comprising Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Mishra questioned the petitioner’s counsel how can he anticipate the Union of India to deliver his burials to the nation?

Showing for petitioner Dargah Hazrat Mulla Syed, the counsel said that the Sufi saint has no household in Pakistan, whereas, on the dargah in Uttar Pradesh, he was the Sajjada-nasheen, which means non secular head. The advocate knowledgeable the apex court docket that the Sufi saint was born in Prayagraj, then referred to as Allahabad, and migrated to Pakistan. The counsel underlined that the Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Muhammad Abdul Muqtadir Shah Masood Ahmad received his Pakistani citizenship in 1992.

Contemplating the submission, the three-judge bench underlined that the Sufi saint was elected because the Sajjada Nasheen of the shrine viz. Dargah Hazrat Mulla Syed Mohammad Shah in 2008 in Prayagraj. The bench continued that later the saint executed his will in 2021 expressing a want to be buried within the shrine and he died in Dhaka the place he was buried. The bench expressed that there are difficulties in entertaining such a petition.

The bench additional remarked that Hazrat Shah was a Pakistani citizen and has no constitutional proper, the sensible difficulties associated to exhumation. The bench noticed that as a matter of first precept, it could not be proper for this court docket to direct the transportation of the mortal stays of a citizen of a overseas state in India.