The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking a ban on the use of loudspeakers for Azan and termed the plea as “wholly misconceived.”
A division bench of Chief Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Aniruddha P Mayee also said that Azan is conducted for a maximum of ten minutes at a time at different hours of the day. “We fail to understand how the human voice making Azan through loudspeaker in the morning could achieve the decibel (level) to the extent of creating noise pollution, causing health hazards for the public at large,” it further said.
“We are not entertaining this kind of PIL. It is a faith and practice going for years, and it is for 5-10 minutes. In your temple, the morning aarti with drums and music also starts early at 3 am. So it does not cause any kind of noise to anyone? Can you say the noise of ghanta (bell) and ghadiyal (gong) remains in temple premises only, does not percolate outside the temple?” the court asked the petitioner’s lawyer.
The petition, filed by Bajrang Dal leader Shaktisinh Zala, stated that noise pollution caused by azan when played through loudspeakers affects people’s, especially children’s health and causes inconvenience otherwise.
