The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with a challenge to restrictions on civilians offering prayers at a mosque located inside Army quarters in Chennai, noting that the issue involved security considerations within a military establishment.
A bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta dismissed a plea against an April 2025 order of the Madras High Court, which had upheld the Army’s decision to bar outsiders from entering the premises of ‘Masjid-E-Aalishaan’.
Appearing for the petitioner, counsel argued that civilians had been allowed to offer prayers at the mosque from 1877 until 2022 and that access was restricted only during the Covid-19 pandemic. He urged that the earlier arrangement should be restored.
The bench was not convinced. “There are security issues and so many things. How can we allow that,” the judges told the petitioner’s counsel while declining to entertain the challenge.
Before the High Court, the petitioner had claimed that Army authorities were refusing to permit civilians to enter the mosque inside the military quarters. The station commander had rejected the petitioner’s representation in June 2021, stating that the mosque was intended “primarily for the use of men connected with the unit and strictly not for outsiders” under the Cantonment Land Administration Rules, 1937.
The division bench of the Madras High Court had held that it could not interfere with such an administrative decision. It observed:
“It is the prerogative of the administration to take a decision whether to permit outsiders or not.”
The court stressed that military authorities were within their rights to rely on the 1937 Rules to restrict civilian access.
Upholding this reasoning, the Supreme Court dismissed the plea, effectively affirming that decisions on entry into Army premises—whether for worship or otherwise—lie with military authorities, especially when justified on security grounds.
