NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a plea filed by the chairman of Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board seeking a ban on hoisting of green flags with crescent and star by the Muslim community and sought the Centre’s response after it was alleged that it was not a symbol of Islam but resembled the flag of Pakistan Muslim League (PML) political party.

A bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan asked the petitioner to hand over a copy of the petition to additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta and asked him to convey the Centre’s stand on the issue.

“Indian Muslims are wrongly treating it as the Islamic flag and are hoisting it in Muslim dominated areas. It is further relevant to state that the crescent and star in a green backdrop have never been a part of any Islamic practice and it does not have any role or significance in Islam,” the petition by Syed Waseem Rizvi said.

The petitioner claimed the flag owed its origin to the erstwhile Muslim League founded by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. “ The hoisting of the Pakistani or Pakistani political party’s identical flags in our country on celebratory occasions of Muslims or even otherwise distances them from the religious majority which rightly looks at such acts as anti-national and communal,” the petition said.

