Supreme Court adjourned pleas seeking Uniform Personal Laws, stating it a legislative work
Written By – Srijan
A three Judges bench in supreme court consisiting of Chief Justice D. Y. Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha and Justice JB pardiwala put off a batch of PIL seeking uniformity in personal laws regulating marriage, divorce, maintenance and alimony.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibbal objecting the batch of PIL argued- “Can such prayers be made before lordships? This is for the government to decide whatever they wish to do. What’s the basis? I can understand that these issues can be individually taken up. But we cannot have an omnibus petition with these kind of prayers.
Counsel for petitioner, Senior Advocate Gopal Sankaranarayan,in oppose to this contended that “There are multipkle prayers. The prayers concerning asking the Law commisssion to prepare a report- how can that be objected to? Tis ius specific in asking that make gender neutral laws. One of the petitioner is muslim woman and she says that I want my law to be gender neutral.”
These are legislative functions. How can we decide?- questioned CJI DY Chandrachud.
SGI Tushar Mehta intervended and said- “ In principle, there can’t be any objection to gender neutral and uniform laws. It is for your lordship to consider what can be dobne on the judicial side
Objecting it, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibbal said- “Even prima facie, the court should not pass any order in this matter. This will prevent any further conflict as this matter is entirely within the domain of legislature.”
However the bench adjourned the matter and stated that it would hear the petition after four weeks and then see what was to be done. Ther were six PILs filed. Four were filed by lawyer ashwini Upadhyay, rest two were filed by Lubna Qureshi and Doris Martin.
Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. Union Of India and Ors.
Writ Petiton No.: 869/2020
