Supreme Court Dismisses PILs Seeking Uniform Religion & Gender Neutral Laws On Divorce, Adoption & Maintenance

The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain the batch of petitions filed by Advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking gender neutral and religion neutral legislations in matters governing divorce, adoption, guardianship, succession/inheritance, and maintenance across the country. The bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice JB Pardiwala held that the matters pertain to the legislative domain and the Supreme Court could not issue a mandamus asking the Parliament to frame laws.

The batch of petitions, for convenience of reference, was segregated in four categories.

The Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta argued that he had already submitted that in principle, a Uniform Civil Code was ideal. However, he stated that the matter fell within the legislative domain. He said–

"The government is concerned. But it (implementation of Uniform Civil Code) cannot be in a writ like this."

CJI DY Chandrachud, dictating the order said – 

"The Solicitor General has submitted that while the Government of India, as a matter of policy, does support uniform legislation. So far as this batch of matters is concerned, it is his submission that such an intervention can only be through the legislative process. On a considered view of the pleadings and the submissions, we are not inclined to entertain the petitions under Article 32. The grant of relief in these proceedings would necessitate a direction for the enactment of law. This lies exclusively within the domain of the legislature. It is a well settled position that a mandamus cannot be issued to legislative to enact law."

As regards to the prayer concerning direction to the Law commission to make a report on the issue, the court stated that it found no reason to entertain the request since ultimately such reports should be in the aid of the enactment of the legislation which fell within the legislative domain. The petitions accordingly were disposed off. 

The Court also delinked the petitions challenging the practice of "Talaq-e-Hasan" from this batch for separate consideration.

Case Title: Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v. UoI And Ors. WP(C) No. 869/2020 PIL and connected cases.

Click Here To Read/Download Order