SC gives two weeks to Centre to reply on banning green crescent-star flags

The Supreme Court on Friday granted two weeks to the Centre for replying on a plea seeking a ban on hoisting of green flags with a crescent and a star at buildings and religious places across the country.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi heard the plea filed by Shia Waqf Board chairman Syed Waseem Rizvi.

Rizvi, in his petition, has claimed that green flags with a crescent and a star are "un-Islamic" and resemble the flag of a Pakistani political party.

In April last year, Rizvi had filed the petition in the apex court.

"I am seeking a direction from the Supreme Court for an immediate ban on green flags with star and crescent on it, as this flag resembles the flag of Pakistan and the Muslim League," he had told ANI.

Rizvi had stated that the green flag with crescent and star owes its origins to the erstwhile political party, the All-India Muslim League which was founded by Nawaz Waqar Ul-Malik and Mohammad Ali Jinnah in 1906 in Dhaka.

In the present day, it is being used by Indian Muslims as an Islamic flag.

Even the national flag of Pakistan, which was adopted in 1947, after its partition from India is a green flag with a white crescent moon and five-rayed star at its centre and a vertical white stripe at the hoist side, which is based on the All-India Muslim League's flag.