Triple talaq, right to privacy: Judgment week for top court
This week could be a turning point for gender justice and civil rights in India, with the Supreme Court expected to decide on the controversial Muslim divorce practice of triple talaq and if privacy is a fundamental right.
Reserving judgments, Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, who presided over hearings in both the cases, had said the verdicts would be pronounced soon.
The CJI retires on August 27, which leaves him only five days to come out with the verdict in the cases that have generated a lot of interest and political heat.
In the Shayara Bano case, the court will decide if the practice of triple talaq discriminated against Muslim women.
Bano, a resident of Uttrakhand, turned to the court in 2015 after her husband ended their 15-year marriage by sending a letter with the word talaq written thrice.
Subsequently, several Muslim women and organisations petitioned the court to scrap the custom.
The government is in favour of scrapping triple talaq, saying it violates the right to equality and is biased against women.
The Muslim personal law board has opposed “judicial interference” in matters of Muslim faith.
The decision in the privacy case will have a bearing on Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometric unique identity number, which the government is pushing for to plug leaks in various welfare schemes.
Critics say it violates privacy and helps government spy on people. While hearing petitions against Aadhaar, the court said it first needed to decide if privacy was a fundamental right.
The government says citizens have a right to privacy but it is not an absolute right.
Judges have differed with the government, saying, “Textually it is correct today that there is no right to privacy in the constitution. But even freedom of press is not expressly stated. This court has interpreted it.”
The Supreme Court allowed on Friday the admission of a girl suffering from thalassaemia to a medical course in Chhattisgarh after a board opined she was eligible to get reservation under the Right of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.
A bench headed by justice Dipak Misra perused the report that said thalassaemia is a benchmark disability under law. The court also agreed to consider the petitioner’s plea to quash a Medical Council of India (MCI) rule that does not list it as a disability.
MCI was asked to inform the court what steps it had taken to revise rules and incorporate new categories the government has included in the new disability law. The expert panel to examine the petitioner was constituted pursuant to the court order last week that came on her petition.
The girl was ranked sixth in the physically handicapped category for Chhattisgarh and had cleared NEET. She said the state did not recognise thalassaemia as a benchmark disability despite the law listing it as one.