Terming the petition a waste of court's time, the division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh also warned that they would dismiss it with cost. After the court made known its disapproval against the PIL, the petitioner withdrew it.
“You are saying you have a problem that Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb had no such policy for giving the grants for temple repair, etc,” the bench observed and added, “We are unable to decide the present policies of the centre and state governments and you are talking about some policies of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb. You want us to decide about the policies of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb? The High Court will decide?” As per a report in The Indian Express, the court also pointed out the randomness of certain PILs and suggested that the petitioner, as “champion of PILs”, should be filing PILs on tax evasion.
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The name of the book in contention is Themes in Indian History – Part II and the paragraph states that all the Mughal emperors uses to give grants for supporting and maintaining places of worship. With reference to the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, it says that though temples were destroyed during wars, later, grants were given for repair. What was argued before the court was that the claim that the book made was not factual.
