NEW DELHI: With several important constitutional issues awaiting adjudication, all eyes are on the Supreme Court to know if it will take up in 2025 contentious petitions, including those challenging the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019 and seeking to declare marital rape an offence.
Passed by Parliament on December 11, 2019 and notified by the Centre on January 10, 2020, the CAA relaxes norms for grant of Indian citizenship by naturalisation to Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi victims of religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who came to India before December 31, 2014. There are more than 230 petitions challenging the validity of the CAA, alleging it discriminated against Muslims. The top court had on January 22, 2020 refused to stay the operation of the CAA and said that ultimately, a five-judge Bench might have to decide it.
More than two years after the top court delivered a split verdict on petitions challenging the March 15, 2022 judgment of the Karnataka High Court which had refused to uphold the ban on hijab in schools in the state, the issue remains unresolved.
While Justice Hemant Gupta (since retired) dismissed the appeals challenging the high court’s judgment, Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia held there would be no restriction on wearing hijab anywhere in the schools and colleges of the state.
Permitting a community to wear its religious symbols to schools will be an “antithesis to secularism”, Justice Gupta had said in October 2022, while Justice Dhulia had insisted that putting on the Muslim headscarf should simply be a “matter of choice”.
Now, the CJI has to take a call on referring the issue to a three-judge Bench for adjudication. Petitioners have been demanding that it should be sent to a five-judge Constitution Bench.
Despite several rounds of litigation, the tussle for control over bureaucracy in Delhi remains unresolved as Delhi Government’s petition challenging the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Act, 2023 that gave wider control over bureaucracy in the national capital to the Centre/L-G awaits adjudication by the Supreme Court.
A three-judge Bench led by the then CJI DY Chandrachud had on July 20, 2023 referred the issue to a five-judge Constitution Bench which is yet to be set up.
Petitions seeking to criminalise marital rape too remain pending since October 17, 2024 when a three-judge Bench led by CJI Chandrachud (since retired) deferred the hearing on the contentious issue by four weeks in view of his scheduled retirement on November 10, 2024 that gave him very little time to complete the hearing.
The top court is to decide on the constitutional validity of provisions in the Indian Penal Code and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita which granted immunity from prosecution for rape to a man, if he forces his wife, who is not a minor, to have sex because such a sexual act is treated as an exception to the offence of rape.
In September 2018, the top court in a 4:1 majority verdict lifted the ban that prevented women and girls between the age of 10 and 50 years from entering the famous Ayyappa shrine in Sabarimala and held that the centuries-old Hindu religious practice was illegal and unconstitutional.
However, enlarging the scope of Sabarimala Temple entry restrictions issue, the Supreme Court had on November 14, 2019 referred to a larger Bench the issue of discriminatory practices in other religions as well for laying down constitutional principles for determination of such issues. In February 2023, the issue of Dawoodi Bohra community’s right to excommunicate its members was also referred to the same nine-judge Bench. It remains to be seen how many of these issues the top court manages to deliver final verdicts.