Suspended over beard, Maharashtra Muslim cop says no to rejoining

NEW DELHI: A Maharashtra policeman, suspended for insisting on keeping a beard against service rules, on Thursday rejected an offer by the Supreme Court to let him join back for now on sympathetic grounds while the court dealt with the issue.

“There is no concept of a temporary beard in Islam,” Mohammed Irshad Hanif, lawyer for the Maharashtra Reserve Police Force cop Zahiroddin Shamsoddin Bedade said, rejecting the court offer to have him reinstated for now.

“We feel sorry for you. Why don’t you join?” the CJI asked his lawyer who had sought an early hearing into the case. But the lawyer hesitated, prompting the CJI to reject his prayer for an early hearing.

The cop was initially allowed to sport a beard, provided it was trimmed, and kept neat and tidy. The permission was later withdrawn by the commandant as against the rules and disciplinary proceedings initiated against him.

The Bombay High Court later on Dec 12, 2012, ruled against him, saying that the force was a secular agency and discipline required him to stick to the secular rules. The High Court had also ruled that keeping a beard was not a fundamental right as it was not a fundamental tenet of Islam. Bedade then approached the top court for relief. The top court had stayed the disciplinary proceedings against him in Jan 2013.

The case has since been pending for a hearing. His lawyer had then cited a 1989 circular for the armed forces to argue that the rules spoke of permitting a beard provided the person kept it for rest of his service.