Responding to a PIL, Jharkhand High Court(JHC) has sought status report from the state government and speaker of the Assembly on allotment of a room for offering namaz in the new Assembly building.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kumar Mishra and Justice Anand Sen directed the respondents - state government and Speaker to submit status report on their decision to allot a separate room to offer namaz to minority Muslim community MLAs and staff.The court fixed May 18 for hearing the case again.

In his PIL, Ajay Kumar Modi has questioned the decision of the state government and the Speaker to allot a separate room by depriving other majority and minority communities such as Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Christian.

During hearing of the PIL, highlighting the stand of the state government and Speaker, Advocate General Rajiv Ranjan informed the court that on demand of the opposition, a committee was set up. As soon as the committee submits its report, it will be be placed before the court.

Notably, in 2021, the room number 348 of the new Assembly building was allotted for offering namaz. As per the order of the Speaker, a notification was issued by the Assembly secretariat. This was opposed by the opposition BJP legislatures.

They had questioned the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led government headed by Chief Minister Hemant Soren in Jharkhand over an order for allotment of a room for offering namaz in the new state assembly building during the ongoing Monsoon Session.

Bokaro MLA and BJP's chief whip Biranchi Narayan is on record saying that the party demands a similar allotment of rooms in the assembly building for people hailing from all other religions, including Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism and so on.