Supreme Court fines litigant who wanted verses removed from Quran

The Supreme Court fined a litigant ₹50,000 for seeking the court’s intervention to have 26 verses, which allegedly preach hatred against non-believers, removed from Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

A bench led by Justice RF Nariman dismissed the plea as “very frivolous” on Monday. The fine has to be paid to the Legal Services Authority, which provides free legal aid to the indigent. The petitioner in the case was Syed Waseem Rizvi, a former chief of the UP Shia Central Wakf Board. His lawyer argued that students who were going to madrasas were exposed to these verses and cannot be conditioned to hate. This would lead to internationalisation of terror.

Madrasas should teach and not indoctrinate students, he argued. He said that his client had written to the central government to deal with the issue, but no action had been taken. The Salafis and Wahabis are using the madrasa system to universalise terror, Rizvi’s petition alleged.


The bench wasn’t convinced.

Rizvi claimed in his petition that his research had shown that the verses were the principal cause of radicalisation of the community, representing a threat to the country. The petition also blamed the creation of Pakistan and violence in Kashmir to these verses.