A nine-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant Wednesday cited the massive caseload to question whether it is prudent for the court to spend enormous time resolving religious rights disputes. The poser came during hearings on the challenge to the Supreme Court's verdict allowing women of menstruating age to enter the Sabarimala shrine and when senior advocate Darius Khambata, appearing for Parsi woman Goolrokh M Gupta, argued that an individual's fundamental right to freedom of conscience and to practice, profess, and propagate religion cannot be annihilated by a denomination's diktat to excommunicate her upon marriage to a non-Parsi man, as she is deemed to have embraced her husband's religion.
Pending Cases Mount
There are almost 93,000 cases pending with the Supreme Court at present. The bench, comprising CJI Kant and Justices B V Nagarathna, M M Sundresh, Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Aravind Kumar, A G Masih, Prasanna B Varale, R Mahadevan, and Joymalya Bagchi, hearing the 'faith vs fundamental right' debate, asked whether an inter-faith marriage under the Special Marriage Act can be classified as a religious activity. Justice Nagarathna noted that under Hindu customs, marriage is a sacrament; in Islam, it is a contract; while under the Special Marriage Act, it is a statutory marriage. She asked if anyone is aggrieved by violation of their rights because of marriage, would it not be prudent to approach a civil court seeking protection of the right?
Arguments on Judicial Scrutiny
Khambata said that if it is a purely religious matter, the disputing parties need not approach the Supreme Court, but a woman who loses her right to enter a religious place because of her marriage can approach a constitutional court for redressal. Justice Sundresh remarked, "You are asking us to enter an arena where we must decide competing rights of two individuals or individual vs denomination, that is the group of followers' rights. How does it fall within the purview of judicial scrutiny by constitutional courts? We have thousands of cases pending. Should we not devote time to that? Competing rights and claims can be decided through civil suits."
As on Wednesday, there are 92,926 cases pending in the Supreme Court—72,386 civil and 20,540 criminal cases. Of these, 36,936 cases are less than one year old. This year, 27,736 cases have been filed in the Supreme Court, and the court has disposed of 26,662 cases.
