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With hearings starting 7 April, the Supreme Court’s nine-judge bench will address whether personal laws can be tested against fundamental rights.
The nine-judge bench will commence hearings on seven questions framed in the aftermath of the Sabarimala review petitions, beginning on 7 April 2026.
(Image: keralatourism.org)
Can the Supreme Court of India strike down customary practices that violate fundamental rights? Can personal laws emanating from religious practices be protected in a modern constitutional democracy? What are the limits of the freedom of conscience and religion under Article 25, and to what extent can religious denominations under Article 26 claim immunity from judicial scrutiny while managing their affairs? These are some of the critical questions that a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court is set to answer.
The nine-judge bench will commence hearings on seven questions framed in the aftermath of the Sabarimala review petitions, beginning on 7 April 2026. The Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment, which allowed women of all ages to enter the Sabarimala shrine, was challenged by the respondents. Following several procedural developments, the Court determined that these broader constitutional questions require authoritative resolution.
The framing of these questions goes beyond the issue of women’s entry into the Sabarimala shrine; it encompasses a range of complex religious practices that impact women’s rights and have prompted repeated appeals to the Court to intervene where such practices violate the right to equality.
Over the past decade, numerous petitions have reached the Supreme Court challenging discriminatory practices that undermine women’s rights to equality and dignity. One such landmark case was Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017), where the Court invalidated the practice of triple talaq. A year later, in the Sabarimala judgment, a 4:1 majority struck down the exclusion of women of menstruating age from temple entry.
Yet, several significant issues concerning women’s rights remain unresolved. These include questions such as: Should polygamy be permitted? Can girls below the age of 18 be legally married under Muslim personal law? Can the practice of female genital mutilation within the Dawoodi Bohra community be constitutionally protected? Should Parsi women who marry outside the community face exclusion from religious and social rights?
One would assume that, with the Constitution guaranteeing equality, such practices would not persist. However, they continue to find legal sanction within the complex interplay between personal laws and constitutional mandates.
The 1952 Bombay High Court judgment in State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali held that personal and customary laws are not “laws” under Article 13 and therefore cannot be tested against fundamental rights. Consequently, reforms in Hindu personal law were made possible through codification. In contrast, Muslim personal law remains largely uncodified.
The Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, provides that matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance shall be governed by Shariat law and customs. This creates disparities—for instance, a Muslim man may legally marry up to four times, while men from other communities cannot. Similarly, under customary practice, a Parsi man retains his religious and social rights upon marrying outside the community, whereas a woman does not.
More than seventy-five years after independence, the time may have come for the Supreme Court to settle one of the most complex constitutional questions of our era: Can religiously sanctioned inequities be legally protected? Will the law remain a passive observer when customary practices infringe upon women’s rights to equality and dignity?
Conflicts between religious freedom and individual rights typically arise in two contexts: first, when the State seeks to regulate religious institutions and practices; and second, when the rights of individuals within a community—particularly women—are curtailed by entrenched religious structures.
While the Court has asserted broad powers to regulate the secular aspects of religious practice (as seen in the Shirur Mutt case, 1954) and has developed the “essential religious practices” doctrine, it has remained cautious in dealing with customary laws affecting women.
In the absence of a Uniform Civil Code, courts have often undertaken a fragmented approach in determining which practices are essential to religion and which are not. They are frequently required to balance the rights of women against the collective rights of religious communities—a task that has yielded inconsistent outcomes.
The precarious state of the law is evident from the reasoning in the triple talaq case. The 3:2 majority did not invalidate talaq-e-biddat solely on the ground that it violated the right to equality, since such practices could not be directly tested against fundamental rights.
Justices Rohinton Nariman and U.U. Lalit interpreted talaq-e-biddat as part of Section 2 of the Shariat Application Act, 1937—despite the Act not expressly mentioning it. By treating it as part of codified law, they were able to subject it to constitutional scrutiny and strike it down. Justice Kurian Joseph, in his concurring opinion, held the practice to be theologically unsound and therefore legally invalid. This reasoning, however, does not offer a consistent framework applicable to similar cases.
The seven questions framed by the Supreme Court—and the principles that will emerge from their adjudication—are likely to define the future relationship between law, religion, and women’s rights in India. This case has the potential to become one of the most consequential constitutional decisions in the domain of personal laws and gender justice.
March 24, 2026, 8:17 PM IST
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