“Outstanding community”

"When I was a lawyer in Allahabad High Court (that is, before I became a Judge of that High Court in 1991), I was sitting in my office one day when a Parsi priest in his white priestly attire came to meet me. There is a small Parsi community in Allahabad, and they had built a fire temple for performing their religious ceremonies, and had appointed this Parsi priest to look after the temple,” stated former Supreme Court of India Justice Markanday Katju who posted two items about the Parsis on his blog on July 6, 2014. The first one dealt with the "renegade” priests case where, after hearing both sides, he told the lawyers that "it does not look nice that Parsis, who are such an outstanding community in our country, are litigating in courts.” He then suggested that the dispute be resolved by mediation and explained the process to them. (The efforts at mediation later broke down — editors)
"The Parsi priest had a legal problem, which I resolved. He then asked me for my fee. I told him that he is a priest, and I do not take fees from priests, whom I regard as sadhus. However, I told him that I had a request. When he asked me what that request was, I said that I had never seen a fire temple in my life, and would be glad if he could show me his fire temple. At first he was silent when I said this, but finally he asked me to come to the temple in the evening.

"In the evening when I reached the compound in which the fire temple was situated, he received me with great respect at the gate, and took me to his residential quarters behind the fire temple. There he offered me cold drinks and snacks. Thereafter when I asked him about the fire temple, he politely said that I should not mind, but non-Parsis were not allowed to enter a fire temple. I apologized to him, and said that I did not know the Parsi customs, otherwise I would not have made my request.
"I am told that in Iran there are still some Parsis (though a tiny minority, which is sometimes persecuted), and some fire temples. I am told that non-Parsis can enter these temples and see them from inside. It seems many Parsis in India are more conservative than those living in their original homeland!”