Hajj Quota allocation suspended by Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal yesterday suspended the allocation of 3500 quotas by the Hajj committee given to Sri Lanka for the Hajj Pilgrimage.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had granted a quota of 3500 pilgrims to the island for the upcoming Hajj in June.

The Hajj committee was given discretion to allocate from the quota numbers of pilgrims to each travel operator.

In a writ petition filed before the Court of Appeal a travel agent who was not granted any allocation said the process adopted by the Hajj committee was arbitrary.

The Petitioners said that there was a large amount of money of pilgrims which were involved and that the process was susceptible to corrupt practices.

They said that they had been singled out and victimised after questioning the conduct of allocation of quotas of the Hajj committee in the year 2023.

The court of appeal also ordered the provisional registration of the Travel Agent United Travels as a Hajj operator.

Hafeel Farisz with Shannon Thilkerathne appeared for the petitioner. Hejaaz Hizbullah appeared for the Hajj Committee of Sri Lanka.