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Indian Court Says Trustees Cannot Exclude Zoroastrian Priests From Tower of Silence

By Howard M. Friedman

In India last week, the Bombay High Court ruled that trustees of the Parsi Panchayet Funds and Properties do not have the authority to bar two duly ordained Zoroastrian priests from performing religious rites at the Malabar Hill Tower of Silence and two fire temples.  The Hindustan Times last week reported that the Parsi Panchayet banned priests Framroze Mirza and Khushroo Madon on the grounds that the priests were engaging in activities that contradicted basic Zoroastrian tenets. A two judge bench of the High Court says that nothing in the Deed of Trust of the Parsi Panchayet gives the trustees this power, and if it did, it would "result in a grave affront to basic human rights and individual dignity." The court said the trustees mistakenly believe "they are custodians of the religion." The decision overruled one by a single judge last year who held that the High Court did not have the jurisdiction to determine what was and was not religious.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on March 15, 2011 (boomark / email).