India: Supreme Court takes up cause of discrimination suffered by Muslim women

A two-judge Bench has ordered registration of a PIL and asked the Chief Justice to set up a Special Bench to consider gender discrimination suffered by Muslim women.

Thirty years after the Supreme Court urged the government to frame a uniform civil code to “help in the cause of national integration” in the Shah Bano case, a two-judge Bench of the court has suo motu ordered registration of a public interest litigation petition and asked the Chief Justice to set up a Special Bench to consider gender discrimination suffered by Muslim women owing to “arbitrary divorce and second marriage of their husbands during the currency of their first marriage”.

Justices Anil R. Dave and Adarsh Kumar Goel issued notice to the Attorney-General and the National Legal Services Authority of India to reply, on November 23, whether “gender discrimination” suffered by Muslim women should not be considered a violation of the fundamental rights under Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and international covenants. The October 16 verdict refers to dozens of its judgments since the 1990s to record the court’s growing realisation that gender discrimination violated the constitutional rights of women. [. . .]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article7801153.ece