Source: https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/tag/article-14-2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 03:26:12+00:00

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The guarantee of non-discrimination under Article 15 of the Constitution is not an essential weapon to fight the criminalisation of victimless consensual sexual acts between adults under section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The ridiculousness of such criminalisation is so patent that even a deferential quest for reasonableness under Article 14 of the Constitution will find the criminal provision wanting. Nor is the provision likely to pass muster with the guarantee of personal liberty and privacy under Article 21. Indeed, there is even a view that no constitutional provision needs to be invoked—that s. 377 can be defanged through a mere statutory reinterpretation in light of changes social facts.
Judicial minimalism (and, the related notion of constitutional avoidance)—the idea that if a case can be decided on narrower grounds, courts should avoid bringing the big guns out—is usually wise counsel. The case before the Supreme Court, however, is unusual. This is an instance where the Court has a constitutional obligation to unrelentingly apply the full moral force of the antidiscrimination principle embedded in Article 15 against s 377, in addition to the arguments mentioned above. There are at least two reasons why judicial minimalism will be unwarranted in this case.
The first reason is institutional. The Court needs to atone for its own institutional sin in recriminalising homosexual conduct by overruling the constitutionally sound judgment of the Delhi High Court. This is an opportunity for the Court to apologise to the Constitution, for its abject failure to defend its values. The Court also owes an apology to millions of innocent Indians who it rebranded as criminals in 2013. It much acknowledge, loudly and clearly, the violence its judgment visited on so many lives. It needs to recognise that it acted as an organ of a colonial state when it criminalised people based simply on who the were, and mocked their quest for justice as a claim for ‘so-called rights’. The Court inflicted a material injury and an expressive wrong on the LGBTQ people of India. The correction must go beyond the material too, and include an expressive remedy. The Court must make sure that its apology is full-throated, and not muted. One way to do so is to un-condemn and celebrate the difference of those it hurt and insulted under the pluralistic ambit of Article 15.
The second reason for an expansive reasoning is provided by the current political context. In most cases, the primary judicial objective is to reach a just outcome under law. But some cases come to acquire an expressive significance far beyond the remedy the court orders. The litigation over s 377 has shaped our political discourse over the last two decades in ways that would have been unimaginable for activists who first challenged the provision at the start of the century. Within fifteen years, the country moved from not talking publicly about homosexuality to a general election where major political parties promised decriminalisation in their election manifestos. What the Court says in this judgment is going to matter as much as what it does through its order.
But the expressive salience of a case on discrimination against a politically disempowered minority, based purely on the prejudices of a majority, goes beyond the issue of LGBTQ rights. Indian constitutional democracy today is at a crossroads. Its constitutional commitment to an inclusive, composite, secular ethos has never been challenged more seriously than it is today. At a time when sectarianism and majoritarian nationalism are seeking to exclude all sorts of minorities from public life and equal citizenship, the Court has a duty to emphasise the inclusive and pluralist rather than majoritarian character of our democracy. Inclusiveness and pluralism lie at the heart of Article 15, which can be the surest vehicle for the Court to lend its institutional authority to the salience of these ideas in our constitutional identity.
A robust development of the Article 15 jurisprudence, along the path showed by the Delhi High Court in 2008, is more urgent than ever. The Court owes a promise to Rohith Vemula that the judiciary would rigorously examine exclusionary and discriminatory practices. It has a duty to all those who have been lynched, harassed or persecuted for being different that Article 15’s promise of defending their personal autonomy and dignity is not empty rhetoric. It is true that the Court alone cannot deal with rampant discrimination. But its strong endorsement of the antidiscrimination principle could provide a boost for political efforts to enact a comprehensive antidiscrimination law, at least in some states to begin with.
It is true that judicial minimalism and constitutional avoidance are not typical features of the jurisprudence of the Indian Supreme Court. The Court has often been jurisprudentially expansive, while being remedially minimalist. But, in politically sensitive cases, it has found judicial minimalism to be strategically useful (its judgment in the triple talaq case, eschewing all mention of Article 15, is a case in point). Such strategic minimalism can often be important for preserving a court’s legitimacy. In the 377 case, however, it is not just judicial legitimacy that is at stake, but the very nature of our constitutional identity.
In his excellent book on constitutional identity, Gary Jacobsohn identifies the phenomenon of disharmony in constitutional identity (p 87): “Sometimes [disharmony] exists in the form of contradictions and imbalances internal to the constitution itself, and sometimes in the lack of agreement evident in the sharp continuities that frame the constitution’s relationship to the surrounding society.” An inclusive pluralism has, largely, been the dominant narrative in India’s constitutional identity. But seeds of disharmony have always existed—internally, in the form of the cow slaughter directive of the Constitution, and externally in the deeply inegalitarian and sectarian social structure the Constitution has tried to transform. As Jacobsohn argues, constitutional disharmony carries within it the seeds of constitutional change.
Make no mistake: the dominance of inclusive pluralism as the defining feature of our constitutional identity itself is at stake. Majoritarian nationalism is waging a spirited battle, not just for continued political relevance but for the very soul of our polity. It doesn’t just seek to win the game, it is trying to change the rules of the game. Which side the Court comes down on, and how robustly, may not determine, but will surely affect the outcome of this battle over defining who We, the people of India, really are.
On the 11th of May, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on the petition concerning – among other things – the constitutionality of the Muslim divorce process commonly known as the ‘Triple Talaq’.
Before the Court, a number of interveners have canvassed a wide range of propositions. In this post, however, I shall focus on the specific issue of “instant Triple Talaq” (where a man can divorce his wife by unilaterally uttering the word “talaq” thrice in succession), and proceed on the assumption that such manner of divorce is illegal and unconstitutional. Now, in order to declare it unconstitutional, the Supreme Court can do one of two things. First, it can adopt a narrow approach in accordance with J. Krishna Iyer’s plea in A. Yousuf Rawther v. Sowramma, and hold that the instant Triple Talaq practice is not part of Muslim Personal Law and therefore excluded from the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. Second, it can take the broader approach, and subject all personal law to the test of Constitutional validity, and principally determine the constitutional validity of the practice. To take the broad approach, however, it will have to overrule a 1951 Bombay High Court judgement State of Bombay v. Narassu Appa Mali, which held that personal laws are not subject to the rights enumerated under Part III of the Constitution.
In this post, I will be dealing specifically with the Narasu judgement, and the need for the Supreme Court to overrule this deeply problematic constitutional pronouncement.
The central question in Narasu related to the validity of the Bombay Prevention of Bigamous Hindu Marriages Act, 1946. The primary contention against the Act was that it was in breach of Articles 14 (Right to Equality) and Article 15 (Prohibition of Discrimination), because the law discriminated between a Hindu and a Muslim male with respect to their respective rights (or lack thereof) to engage in polygamy. Article 25 (Right to Freedom of Religion) was also argued, on grounds that this Act infringed with the right of Hindus to practice polygamy, which was argued as forming part of Hindu custom.
However, under the Constitution only a ‘law’ or a ‘law in force’ as defined in Article 13, which invalidates all laws that are in derogation of fundamental rights, can be subject to the rights under Part III. Therefore prior to examining the aforementioned contentions, the Court undertook to answer the more fundamental question of whether Personal Laws (such as the Act in question) are ‘laws’ or ‘laws in force’ under Article 13.
The Division Bench of C.J. Chagla and J. Ganjendragadkar unanimously answered in the negative, with both judges giving somewhat distinguishable reasoning for their decision. I will examine both separately.
‘The expression ‘laws in force’..refers to what may compendiously be described as statutory laws. There is no doubt that laws which are included in this expression must have been passed or made by a Legislature or other competent authority, and unless this test is satisfied it would not be legitimate to include in this expression the personal laws merely on the ground that they are administered by Courts in India.
His argument thus proceeds on two grounds. First, that Article 13(1) only contemplates statutory laws, and second, that personal laws cannot be considered statutory law and are therefore outside the scope of Article 13.
Respectfully, J. Gajendragadkar’s interpretation is in direct conflict with the wording of 13(3)(b), as it employs the term ‘includes’ in the definition of the term ‘laws in force’, thereby broadening its scope. J. Agarwal, in P. Kasilingam v. PSG College of Technology states that the word ‘includes’ enlarges the meaning of the expression defined so as to comprehend not only such things as they signify according to their natural import, but also the things as the clause says they shall include. More recently, J. Jain in Bharat Cooperative Bank (Mumbai) v. Employees Union agreed with the dictum of Kasilingam, by holding that ‘includes’ makes the definition enumerative, in that the term defined will retain its ordinary meaning but its scope will be extended to bring within it matters, which in its ordinary meaning may or may not comprise.
It remains unclear what specific import he sought for the term ‘general’ to have in this context, and no clear reasoning as to why he resultantly narrows the scope of Article 13. This interpretation is plainly not supported by the enumerative wording of Article 13(3)(b), and it is his own characterisation of personal laws that places it well within the scope of the ordinary meaning of ‘laws in force’.
It is well-known that the personal laws do not derive their validity on the ground that they have been passed or made by a Legislature or other competent authority in the territory of India. The foundational sources of both the Hindu and the Mahomedan laws are their respective scriptural texts.
This argument proceeds on the contention that personal laws are based upon an untrammelled application of the scriptural texts ‘to which they owe their allegiance.’ However, this reasoning ignores the significant role played by the Judiciary and the Legislature in moulding religious texts in light of modern constitutional principles – which have in several instances been accepted by the schools that are responsible for their application. As a result, the High Court’s singular premise for excluding personal laws from Article 13 is unfounded.
This contention can be demonstrated through an examination of how personal law came to be defined by religious practice in the colonial era. The British administration took upon itself the duty of both defining and adjudicating personal law, which required that it determine which practices would constitute law, and which would simply have social force. (Sturman, 2012) For this purpose, Courts, the Privy Council in particular, developed a three-step test to determine what constituted religious custom – that any principle must be ancient, invariable and supported by clear evidence. This made the establishment of any custom invariably difficult, leading to the greater homogenisation and enforcement of Brahmanical law by Courts, irrespective of the diverse religious leanings of parties to a dispute. (Sturman) The British insistence on ‘clarity, certainty and definitiveness’ was alien to Hindu and Islamic traditions, whose traditions and custom were ‘not of a nature to bear the strict criteria imposed by British lawyers.’ (Galanter, 1968) The establishment of the High Courts in India in 1864 also rendered null the position of ‘law officers’, like Shastris and Maulvis, who were responsible for offering textual interpretations and opinions pertaining to personal law.
Therefore, the idea that religious/personal law exists as it was written in the Smriti or the Quran ignores the intricate systems of ‘contractual governance’ within religious sects that enabled them to re-interpret text in light of changing societal norms. By taking away the ability of these local collective structures to make decisions for themselves, these structures were compelled to surrender all decision-making, concerning personal law, among other things, to the Imperial government which made decisions in light of international or a collective mode of logic – vastly different from the ones followed at the local level. The movement to bring the local community into the public sphere was thus not an organic one, and was done for the sole purpose of making them more amenable to coexistence with societal and religious norms defined by the British. Thus, J. Gajendragadkar’s notion of a clean and inextricable link between religious texts and personal law is deeply ahistorical and largely a colonial construct, as it denies entirely the crucial role played by customary law at the local level in developing this law, and subsequently shaping its application.
We can now turn to C.J. Chagla’s conception of the scope of law under Article 13, and where personal laws may be placed in this spectrum.
This reasoning is flawed for a number of reasons. His distinction between custom and personal law is, in my opinion, based on a misguided reading of the Constitution. This can be proven through an examination of the very basis of the argument, the principle of expressio unius exclusio alterius, i.e. the expression of one excludes the other, and its present application.
This principle is used sparingly as a tool of interpretation, being described as a ‘dangerous master’ because the conditions in which it can be conclusively applied remain unclear. Guidance is provided by the Calcutta High Court in Union of India v. BC Nawn, which held that primary purpose of this principle is when a provision in a statute expressly mentions one or more particulars, but does not mention some others, then those others not mentioned are taken to have been excluded from the provision. J. Chagla stretches the application of this principle far beyond this contemplation to encompass all provisions of the Constitution – holding in effect that any Constitutional declaration specifically relating to personal law is further evidence of its exclusion as a ‘law’ under 13(3)(a). This reading cannot be reconciled with the actual wording of Article 13, because it does not define ‘law’ or ‘laws in force’ in an exhaustive manner, with the broad import of the word ‘including’ in the definition of both terms exemplifying the intent of the drafters not to subject them to restrictive tools like the exclusio principle. It should not be said, as a result, that Articles relating to personal law under the Constitution occupy a field independent of Article 13.
This underlying logic of this principle is made weaker in light of its problematic implications. Take for example Article 23, which establishes a right against discrimination on grounds of religion, caste or class. As per J. Chagla’s reasoning, the inclusion of a specific right against caste-discrimination would signify its exclusion from the scope of Article 14, which establishes a right to equality. However, this is apparently untrue, with the Supreme Court holding in a catena of decisions that certain provisions in the Constitution must be read together, due to the broad wording of certain provisions under Part III, and the ‘abundant caution’ of the drafters lead to the inclusion of certain provisions. A relevant example is that of the inclusion of Article 13 itself. C.J. Kania in his decision in A.K Gopalan v. State of Madras wrote that even in the absence of Article 13(1) and (2), Courts would still have the authority to strike down unconstitutional enactments; but the drafters still included Article 13. This inclusion, he argues, demonstrates the exercise of ‘abundant caution’ by the Constitutional drafters to ensure that all prospective laws and laws already in force were immediately invalidated, irrespective of subsequent litigation. Similarly, the inclusion of Article 17, which criminalises untouchability, can be said to have been included on similar grounds, to enable the State to impose adequate sanction upon those engaging in the practice, without having to wait for its declaration as being ultra vires.
Therefore, one would hope that the Supreme Court recognises this, and overrules Narasu, in light of both its incorrect reading of Article 13, as well as the ahistorical understanding of the distinction between personal law and ‘laws in force’ as recognised under the Constitution. Only if the Court undertakes such an exercise can we move beyond the current trend of judicial ‘cherry-picking’ in relation to what religious doctrines are and are not in fact personal law, and principally examine the legal validity of these principles in light of Part III. Here’s to hoping.
Tomorrow, a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court will commence hearings in the constitutional challenge to Section 6A of the Citizenship Act. The case comes up for hearing as the result of a referral order under Article 145(3) of the Constitution, passed by a bench of two judges in Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha vs Union of India, who framed thirteen questions of law to be decided by a Constitution Bench.
Tomorrow’s hearing may be a brief one. The Bench has indicated that it is unlikely to hear the matter unless all counsel commit to finishing within seven working days. Given the scale and complexity of some of the questions (as we shall see), as well as the number of intervention applications that were allowed after the referral, this is unlikely. In light of the fact, however, that even if it is not heard at the present, it is likely to be taken up soon after the vacations (in July or August), I shall provide a brief primer to the case.
Migration has been a source of social and political conflict in the border-state of Assam at least the middle of the 19th century. During the framing of the citizenship provisions of the Constitution during the Constituent Assembly Debates, the representative from Assam highlighted issues pertaining to large-scale migration from Bengal, its impact upon the indigenous population and culture, and asked for specific constitutional provisions to deal with the issue. Ultimately, however, the Constitution contained only skeletal provisions on citizenship – in particular, to deal with the Partition – and left the issue to be addressed by Parliament. Article 5 of the Constitution incorporated the broad jus soli principle of citizenship, stipulating that all those who had their domicile in India at the time of the commencement of the Constitution, would be citizens if they were born here, if either of their parents were born here, or who had been ordinarily resident for not less than five years. Articles 6 and 7 were the Partition provisions, dealing with migrations to and from Pakistan, and fixing 19th July 1948 as the “cut-off date” for citizenship. And to clarify that these provisions were only dealing with the special situation created by the Partition, Article 11 contained an overriding clause authorising Parliament to legislate for citizenship. Parliament did so in 1955, with the Citizenship Act, and a special law for Assam titled the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act of 1950.
To regulate the entry of migrants into India, the colonial government had passed the Foreigners Act of 1946, which continued even after Independence. This Act conferred powers upon the government to prohibit entry of foreigners, among other things. In 1964, acting under the authority of the Act, the Government promulgated the Foreigners Tribunal Order. This Order authorised the Government to establish Tribunals to determine questions of nationality, in accordance with the provisions of the Foreigners Act. Consequently, the Constitution of India, the Citizenship Act of 1955, the Foreigners Act of 1946, and the Foreigners Tribunal Order of 1964 comprised a comprehensive statutory regime dealing with both substantive and procedural questions of citizenship and migration.
Meanwhile, issues of migration continued to cause conflict in Assam. Matters came to a head during the run-up to the Bangladesh War of 1971, where in fact a massive influx of refugees into India from (what was then) East Pakistan was cited as one of the reasons for India’s involvement in the war. The issues did not cease even after 1971, however, because it was perceived that many of “illegal immigrants” were being put on voting rolls by political parties attempting to create faithful constituencies. Ultimately, this led to a state-wide student movement called the Assam Agitation, which lasted six years, from 1979 to 1985. The movement was sometimes punctuated by violence, including the Nellie massacre of 1983. It was finally brought to a close in 1985, with the signing of the Assam Accord between the Government of India, and the leaders of the movement.
Section 6A of the Citizenship Act – introduced through an amendment in 1985 – was the legislative enactment of the legal part of the Assam Accord. Section 6A divided “illegal” immigrants of Indian origin (i.e., those whose parents or grandparents were born in undivided India) who came into Assam from Bangladesh into three groups: those who came into the state before 1966; those who came into the state between 1966 and 25th March, 1971 (the official date of the commencement of the Bangladesh War); and those who came into the state after 1971. The first group (pre-’66) was to be regularised. The second group (’66 – ’71) was to be taken off the electoral rolls, and regularised after ten years. The third group (’71-onwards) was to be detected and expelled in accordance with law.
Section 6A, therefore, was a special citizenship law for Assam, hammered out as a result of a political settlement. Meanwhile, two years before the Accord and S. 6A, the Parliament had also passed the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals Act) of 1983. This Act authorised the Government to set up Tribunals for the purposes of determining whether migrants were illegal. Under the Act, the Government framed the Illegal Migrant Rules of 1984. The Act and the Rules, taken together, made some departures from the procedure under the Foreigners Act and the Foreigners Tribunal Order: for example, the procedure for making a reference to the Tribunal was made more onerous, the burden of proof was shifted from the State to the individual, and so on.
Consequently, the statutory regime governing migration to Assam now became Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, read with the Illegal Migrants Act of 1983, and the Illegal Migrant Rules of 1984. While the Government defended this regime on the basis of protecting minorities, who were genuine citizens of India, from persecution they were also attacked as being too lax on illegal migration, and making it almost impossible to deport illegal migrants.
The Illegal Migrants Act and Rules were challenged before the Supreme Court in Sarbananda Sonowal vs Union of India. A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court held that the statutory regime, with its reversal of the burden of proof clause (placing the burden of proof upon the State rather than the alleged illegal migrant), and its procedural requirements of filing applications (“… accompanied by affidavits sworn by not less than two persons residing within the jurisdiction of the same police station in which the person referred to in the application is found, or residing, corroborating the averments made in the application.“), was insufficient to check the problem of illegal migration. Relying upon a 1998 report by the Governor of Assam, the Supreme Court held that there was a flood of Bangladeshi migrants into Assam, which the statutory regime had failed to check. This, the Court held, amounted to “external aggression” against the State of Assam, and under Article 355 of the Constitution, it was the duty of the Union to protect every state against external aggression. Holding the statutory regime of the Illegal Migrants Act and Illegal Migrants Rules to be directly responsible for this failure, the Court held the Act and Rules to be unconstitutional.
After Sarbananda Sonowal, therefore, the Tribunals under the IMDT ceased to function, and the statutory regime reverted to Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, and the Foreigners Act and the Foreigners Tribunal Order. The State’s attempt to get around this through passing the Foreigners Tribunal (for Assam) Order of 2006 was also struck down by the Court in Sarbananda Sonowal (II).
“(i) Whether Articles 10 and 11 of the Constitution of India permit the enactment of Section 6A of the Citizenship Act in as much as Section 6A, in prescribing a cut-off date different from the cut-off date prescribed in Article 6, can do so without a “variation” of Article 6 itself; regard, in particular, being had to the phraseology of Article 4 (2) read with Article 368 (1)?
As we can see, these referral questions raise a host of complex issues about the interaction between the State’s sovereign power of conferring citizenship, the right to equal treatment, and the right to preservation of culture and identity; the interaction between rule of law and citizenship provisions arising as a result of political settlements; and the impact of a possible judgment of unconstitutionality upon vested rights that have stood for decades.
After the referral order, some further petitions were filed, that were tagged with the main case. These included a petition asking that Section 3 of the Citizenship Act be read in a manner that children of illegal immigrants, when it came to Assam, ought not to be granted citizenship, on the basis that Section 6A was a comprehensive provision dealing with the issue of migration and citizenship in Assam. Petitions were also filed challenging the Foreigners (Amendment) Order of 2015 and the Passport (Entry into India) Amendment Rules, 2015, which stated that “persons belonging to minority communities in Bangladesh and Pakistan, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians who were compelled to seek shelter in India due to religious persecution or fear of religious persecution and entered into India on or before the 31 st December, 2014” would be granted exemption from application of the Foreigners Act and the Passport Rules. It is unclear whether the Court will take up these additional issues for hearing as well.
Either way, we shall know more about the progress of this case tomorrow.

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