Author: Editorial
Publication: The Times of India
Date: September 4, 2013
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Mamata-in-a-soup-The-Calcutta-high-court-strikes-down-her-decision-to-pay-a-monthly-allowance-to-Muslim-clerics/articleshow/22265439.cms

In her zeal to establish her secular credentials in the eyes of West Bengal's Muslims — who constitute close to 30% of the state's population — chief minister Mamata Banerjee has taken certain decisions that test the limits of constitutional propriety. This is the sum and substance of an order that a division bench of the Calcutta high court passed on Tuesday striking down the state government`s move to pay a monthly allowance to imams and muezzins. The bench decreed that it ran counter to Article 15(1) of the Constitution which enjoins on the state not to 'discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth'.

 Justices P K Chattopadhyay and M P Shrivastava disputed the government's claim that its decision was in the `public interest` and also pulled it up for not adhering to set procedures to disburse the funds saying that this was tantamount to the 'misappropriation of the public exchequer'.

 The chief minister will have to answer these charges with arguments that are shorn of self-serving rhetoric. The real issue at stake is the deviation from the letter and spirit of Article 15(1). But beyond the high court's order she would also need to address other serious concerns. They include her government's record in implementing the Sachar and Ranganath Mishra commissions` recommendations to improve the lot of the Muslims and her regime's failure to check the radicalisation of the state's Muslims. The latter was in stark evidence at a rally organised in Kolkata on March 30 by 16 Islamic organisations in support of those accused of genocide during the Bangladesh liberation struggle. The compulsions of vote-bank politics must not be allowed to detract attention from the nation's security interests.