Mumbai, Jun 6 (PTI) The Bombay High Court on Friday asked the Maharashtra government to decide, preferably during the day itself, a representation seeking permission to perform namaz during Bakri Eid at the August Kranti Maidan in south Mumbai.

A vacation bench of Justices Neela Gokhale and Manjusha Deshpande asked a social worker, Umer Abdul Jabbar Gopalani, to approach the government’s social and cultural affairs department to seek permission to hold mass prayers at the ground.

Gopalani had moved the HC after the Gamdevi police station refused permission for the mass namaz. The festival is likely to be celebrated on June 6-7.

While refusing permission, the police had reasoned that traffic issues and a possible “law and order” situation might arise due to the use of the public ground for such a religious purpose.

The plea claimed that the local Muslim community has been using the ground to perform mass namaz during Eid for the last 50 years, and there has never been any law and order situation or traffic problem.

The bench referred to an order passed by the HC in 2006, which said that permission for the use of the August Kranti Maidan can be given only by the Secretary of Maharashtra’s Cultural Affairs and Social Justice Department, as the ground is a “protected monument”.

August Kranti Maidan is the place where Mahatma Gandhi had launched the Quit India Movement in 1942.

The court asked the petitioner to make a representation to the authority and said the same shall be decided, preferably by Friday itself. PTI SP NR