The Bombay High Court today posted for August 1 the final hearing of petitions on controversial issue of 'child diksha' (renunciation) which came into public focus after an eight-year-old girl opted for it in March 2004. The matter came up before a bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud which kept it for final hearing on August 1. The petitions filed by Ashok Bagricha and others had argued that 'child diksha' or renunciation is a practice which is integral to Jainism and challenged the jurisdiction of Child Welfare Committee (CWC) which had opined that the young girl who opted for 'Diksha' needed care. In March 2004,a 'diksha' ceremony in which a minor girl renounced the material world had given rise to a public debate among child rights activists on this practice. It was brought to the attention of the CWC by Childline,an NGO. In July 2006,the High Court had directed the CWC to find out whether the young girl had taken 'diksha' voluntarily or had been forced to do so. The CWC reported that the young girl needed care. Her parents challenged the CWC order in the HC,which granted a stay on it. The petitions had argued that CWC had not taken into consideration the material point that such practice was imbibed in Jain religion. The High Court had then observed that it was concerned only with the legal point and not religious sentiments. A court-appointed committee had interviewed the girl at a Jain temple in Juhu in September 2008. The committee had observed that prima-facie "giving diksha to the child 'sadhvi' is a positive volition on her part at the time the decision was taken for her and an absence of thinking about the consequences by and for her".
