Guest Post: Pension Cessation and the Rekindled Framework under Article 15(3) [Part II]

[This is a guest post by Kartik Kalra. This piece is the second of a two-part series on the evaluation and application of a rekindled framework to test protective discrimination under Article 15(3). Part One can be accessed here.]

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In the previous post of this two-part series, I have proposed a four-pronged test that is capable of navigating the thin line between recognizing and entrenching stereotypes when evaluating the saving of discriminatory laws under Article 15(3). To recall, this test consists of the following prongs:

1. the law must be based on stereotypes that are quantitatively verifiable;
2. the stereotype must be perpetuated in pursuance of remedying historical disadvantages faced by women;
3. there must be no availability of a lesser-discriminatory alternative than the impugned law; and
4. the advantage conferred on the historically disadvantaged group (i.e., women) must be greater than the disadvantage generated via the perpetuation of stereotypes.

In this piece, I apply this framework to the pensionary regime in general and remarriage-related Pension Cessation Rules (“PCR”) in particular, demonstrating the test’s ability to dismantle stereotypes without causing tangible disadvantages to women as a class. In doing so, I first introduce the judgement of the Queen’s Bench Division in Green v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, also discussing the nature of Indian PCRs and the type of constitutional challenge they are susceptible to. Following this, I evaluate PCRs within Article 15(1), showing their indirectly discriminatory nature. Finally, I apply the four-pronged test to PCRs and propose a possible narrowing of the sex-based class to a dependency-based one, preventing the active entrenchment of stereotypes using the test’s third prong.

Remarriage Causing Pension Cessation

Earlier this year, the Queen’s Bench Division of the United Kingdom delivered its judgement in Green v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner, where it upheld a rule that denied pensionary benefits to widows on remarriage. Sharon Green, the lead petitioner, was the wife of a police officer who died during service. After twelve years of staying single and surviving off the pension she received following her husband’s death, she found a partner near her street with whom she envisioned a future. Regulation C9 of the Police Pension Scheme, 1987, however, stood as an enormous obstacle, which mandated a cessation of pensionary benefits on her remarriage or on continued cohabitation with a partner. Green was presented with two options: either continue to survive off the pension and abjure from entering into a romantic relationship, or to enter into one but sacrifice her livelihood.

The condition of remarriage leading to a cessation of pensionary benefits is omnipresent in Indian law, expressly mentioned u/ss. 50(8)(a) of the Central Civil Services (Pension) Rules, 2021, 49(6)(i) of the Tamil Nadu Pension Rules, 1978 and 6.17(4)(i)(a) of the Punjab Civil Services Rules, 1984. This condition is also present, inter alia, in the service rules formulated by Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Judicial review of such rules along with the regime of pensionary benefits presents a perplexing challenge that I have discussed in the previous post, given that the law’s validation perpetuates sex-based stereotypes and its invalidation causes immediate, tangible disadvantages to women.

The challenge to rules that have the effect of perpetuating sex-based stereotypes occurs within Article 15(1), which prohibits discrimination (both direct and indirect) on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex and place of birth. Such rules can be saved under Article 15(3) if they constitute a “special provision for women”. Presently, under Article 15(1), the constitutional assessment of laws perpetuating stereotypes via direct discrimination yields a direct conclusion of unconstitutionality as held in Navtej (¶438-9), while those doing the same via indirect discrimination is subject to a proportionality-backed justification by the state as held in Nitisha (¶87).

PCRs and Article 15(1)

At this stage, it would be important to note that Indian PCRs, as opposed to the unamended Regulation C9 of the United Kingdom, do not generally discriminate directly on the basis of sex. An exception to this could be ss. 87 of the Pension Regulations for the Air Force, 1961 and 133 of the Pension Regulations for the Army, 2008, both of which deny pensionary benefits to a widower. By and large, however, most states recognize the eligibility of both widows and widowers to obtain pensionary benefits that cease at remarriage. The constitutional challenge, therefore, lies in indirect instead of direct discrimination.

Indirect discrimination under Article 15 concerns disparate impact: neutral rules affect particular groups differently due to pre-existing structural disparities. It serves as a mode to confirm the denial of equality of opportunity from the disproportion of outcomes. Nitisha adopted the test in Fraser v. Canada to address indirect discrimination, which asks whether a neutral rule disproportionately affects a particular group, and whether the impugned rule has the effect of reinforcing, perpetuating, or exacerbating the disadvantage faced by that group (¶86). There is no defined standard of empirical evidence necessary to establish indirect discrimination, and the Court is empowered to make use of its common sense in assessing disparate impact (¶82). Who would be affected disproportionately by a law on the cessation of pensionary benefits on remarriage, men or women?

Data shows that men occupy a disproportionate number of jobs in state employment, and therefore widows are the primary recipients of pensionary benefits until they remarry. PCRs act as a deterrent in their remarriage, for the law demands that they choose between a financially secure life of solitude or an impoverished life of love. Either way, women as a class are disadvantaged: socially and psychologically if they choose the former, and economically if they choose the latter. It would be important to note that Green held that PCRs cannot be characterized as infringing privacy, for the effect of the law is not determinative of the engagement of constitutional rights (¶78). In Indian jurisprudence, however, it is solely the effect of a limitation on the individual that determines the engagement of a constitutional right. PCRs have the effect of preventing women from exercising their rights of intimate decision-making in choosing their marital (or otherwise) partners, which has been repeatedly held to constitute a facet of their right to privacy. Shakti Vahini v. Union of India held the choice to marry a person of one’s choice to be a facet of individual autonomy; Shafin Jahan v. Ashokan KM held the “choice of a partner whether within or outside marriage” to lie “within a core zone of privacy, which is inviolable”; Arunkumar v. Inspector General of Police held the decision of a transgender woman to marry a man to be a facet of her privacy; and Indra Sarma v. VKV Sarma held the decision to cohabit without marriage to be an intimate and personal decision.

The state, in effect, makes its citizens choose between a fundamental right and a compelling financial necessity, which leaves them with no real choice. In literature and case law, a state demand of the citizen’s relinquishment of a fundamental right is navigated within the framework of the doctrine of unconstitutional conditions. Under this doctrine, the way it has been developed in India, the engagement of a fundamental right is triggered whenever the affected individual can show that the state’s demand is “unreasonable in the special sense that it takes away or abridges the exercise of a right protected by an explicit provision of the Constitution” (St. Xaviers’ College v. State of Guajrat, ¶158). This is undoubtedly the case with PCRs, for the state demands that an individual choose between their rights of intimate decision-making or their financial well-being. There is, therefore, a prima facie engagement of their fundamental rights. The evaluation of the reasonableness of the restriction via PCRs, however, is separate, and would occur within an Article 21 enquiry.

In sum, PCRs disproportionately affect women and have the effect of depriving them of their freedom of intimate decision-making. On this basis, I submit that PCRs, as they currently stand in India, are indirectly discriminatory against women.

PCRs and the Four-Pronged Test under Article 15(3)

At this stage, it must be noted that a failure in meeting the Fraser criteria does result in a direct conclusion of the law’s unconstitutionality, for the law can be saved by a proportionality-based justification offered by the state. While this justification can be offered to save the law from being indirectly discriminatory in the first place, a separate exercise will have to be carried out to save it using Article 15(3). The proposed four-pronged test is of a higher scrutiny as compared to the traditional proportionality test, for it additionally requires the elimination of over-inclusiveness in the law’s application. Given the higher scrutiny of the proposed test, I shall directly examine the possibility of saving the law under Article 15(3) instead of evaluating its justifiability under Article 15(1). Lastly, it must be noted that PCRs would be saved by Article 15(3) only insofar as they function to cease the pension of widows, not of widowers.

1. Quantitative Verifiability

The stereotype used and perpetuated by PCRs pertains to the economic dependence of women: they were first dependent on their earlier husband, then on the state, and now on their new husband. The verification of this stereotype must consider, inter alia, the proportion of women’s representation in state employment (around 20%), sex-based division of the total recipients of pensions, and the proportion of unmarried widows dependant on the state (around 90%). The empirical standards pronounced in Nitisha may also be deemed to apply here, meaning that the use of common-sense in the task of determining the quantitative verifiability of stereotypes shall be encouraged (¶82). In the South African Constitutional Court’s judgement in President v. Hugo, the judges concur that the stereotype of women as primary care-givers is true in fact without necessitating intense fact-finding endeavours (¶37, 77, 113). Economic dependence of women, therefore, is a verifiable stereotype and PCRs would satisfy the first prong.

2. Remedying Historical Disadvantage

The economic exclusion of women is a historical process of the solidification of the public-private divide, via which women have been relegated to the domain of the household where the “writ of the king doesn’t run”, and the man becomes the king, the sole breadwinner of the household. It is this historical subordination of women that pensionary benefits function to allay: they recognize that structural factors cause the present economic dependency of women, and that the state takes on the task of eliminating vagrancy that may be caused due to unfulfilled dependency. Correspondingly, PCRs also acknowledge this historical disadvantage by ceasing pensionary benefits when the woman has another partner. Fundamentally, this prong ensures that the vice of essentialism is not committed by portraying women as subordinate or inferior, instead acknowledging the historical and structural reasons that necessitate protective measures.

3. Availability of Lesser-Discriminatory Measures

The test of finding lesser-discriminatory alternatives requires, therefore, the investigation of a narrower class, the application of the law on whom doesn’t jeopardise stereotyping an entire sex-based (or otherwise) class a certain way. There exist such alternatives that are presently operational in India. The class subject to PCRs is the same as that receiving pensions, the possible narrowing of which must be evaluated to determine the availability of lesser-discriminatory alternatives. Consider, for example, Section 133(b) of the Pension Regulations of the Army, 2008, which introduces an additional variable to determine the eligibility to receive a widow’s pension: the maintenance of children. This law holds that if the widow is supporting the children borne out of her previous marriage, she shall be entitled to a full pension; and if she isn’t supporting her children after remarriage, she will be entitled to an amount between 30 and 60% of her original pension. The class eligible for the receipt of a full pension becomes smaller and reflects the variables affecting true dependency, veering the classification away from a sex-based one to a dependency-based one. In addition, the Indira Gandhi National Widow Pension Scheme applies to women who earn below a prescribed level, and the Swadhar Greh Scheme applies to women who are victims of difficult circumstances and require institutional support. There exist, therefore, alternatives measures that are able to narrow the classification, avoiding overinclusiveness and refraining from perpetuating the stereotype of women as dependent. PCRs can, therefore, be remodelled to cease benefits on the attainment of economic independence, not on a change in marital status.

4. Weighing of Advantages and Disadvantages

Given the availability of lesser-discriminatory alternatives that are able to meet the state’s eventual goal of preventing vagrancy, the law would have to be re-evaluated to make it conform to the third prong. For the fourth prong, we must weigh the advantages that women as a class receive under the pensionary regime with the disadvantages caused to them due to the perpetuation of sex-based stereotypes. Judges would arrive at different outcomes for this prong, as the contrasting reasonings offered by O’Regan and Krigler JJ. in President v. Hugo show. While O’Regan J. held that a law cognizant of stereotypes can confer meaningful advantages on women in the present (¶112), Krigler J. held that the perpetuation of sex-based stereotypes is inevitable in their recognition and must be avoided to the greatest extent (¶80).

I consider that an unwavering commitment to constitutional ideals at the cost of livelihoods is also bound to produce sub-optimal outcomes. A reading of this prong must ordinarily be construed in favour of the impugned stereotypical law, given that it reaches this stage after a confirmation of its application to the narrowest possible class. The pensionary regime confers an obvious advantage on women as a class in the form of tangible benefits of pensions, and a declaration of its unconstitutionality due to cessation on remarriage is bound to produce significant disadvantages for women in the present.

Conclusion

Through this two-part series, I have attempted to demonstrate the degree of perplexity one encounters in navigating the conflict between the pursuit of constitutional ideals and the immediate concern of addressing vagrancy via the recognition of verifiable stereotypes. The present framework under Article 15(3) proves inadequate to navigate this question, for it lacks a determining principle to save some laws and reject others. In response to this, I developed a four-pronged test that requires that the investigation of a narrower class within the sex-based classification to whom the impugned law applies. The four-pronged test, while easily susceptible to a critique of the kind levelled in Frontiero v. Richardson concerning the greatest possible avoidance of all sex-based classifications, bears fidelity to social iniquity in fact instead of a dogmatic commitment to constitutional ideals. This, I propose, best balances the twin considerations of dismantling stereotypes and eliminating vagrancy.

The dilemma between the recognition and entrenchment of stereotypes can be vividly observed in the functioning of pensionary benefits, a site for the four-pronged test’s application. The application of this test to the pensionary regime yields a general conclusion of the law’s constitutionality, provided that the class to whom they apply is narrowed, and the classification veered away from a sex-based one to a truly dependency-based one. The process of dismantling stereotypes is long and sustained, one where the law both follows and guides social progress. Immediate declarations of unconstitutionality benefit none, eliminating stereotypes only in law while they continue to thrive in fact. The four-pronged test, therefore, serves as a meaningful instrument in navigating this dilemma, upholding advantageous stereotype-based laws at the present while guiding the stereotypes’ ultimate dismantling.

Guest Post: The Hijab Case through the Lens of Intersectionality

[This is a guest post by M. Jannani.]

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In my previous post, I had analysed judgments delivered by the Kenyan courts in Mohamed Fugicha v. Methodist Church and how they had applied of the doctrine of indirect discrimination to strike down a restriction on wearing Hijabs along with the uniform, issued by a school in Kenya. I had also discussed how the Kenyan courts had applied the indirect discrimination test laid down in the Sarika case. In this blog, I take a step further and argue why the Hijab case would benefit from the import and application of the Sarika test by Indian courts. The first part of my essay will discuss why the direction issued by the pre-university education department of the Karnataka government has the effect of intersectional discrimination upon female Muslim students. The second part will discuss why the indirect discrimination tests laid down in Fraser v. Canada or Griggs v. Duke Power Company should not be applied by the court to the Hijab case. In the third part, I examine how the principle of reasonable accommodation interacts with the doctrine of indirect discrimination and its relevance to the present case.

Intersectional discrimination

In Navtej Johar v. Union of India , Justice Chandrachud’s concurring opinion recognized that claims of discrimination can be made on more than a single ground under article 15 of the Constitution of India. This view was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Ravinder Kumar Dhariwal v. Union of India.  In Patan Jamal Vali v. The State of Andhra Pradesh the Supreme Court discussed in length the difference between single axis discrimination and intersectional discrimination. It also specifically held that:

“When the identity of a woman intersects with, inter alia, her caste, class, religion, disability and sexual orientation, she may face violence and discrimination due to two or more grounds.” (Emphasis mine)

The restriction on female Muslim students from wearing the Hijab is one that has the effect of discriminating against them on account of both their religious and gender identities. This is best captured by the following excerpt from an article by Maleiha Malik titled Complex Equality: Muslim Women and the ‘Headscarf’ which explains how the restriction imposed by different governments on headscarves worn by Muslim women is not only an attack on their religion but also a form of gender-based discrimination:

“One reason that the gender aspects disappears within the analysis is because it uses single axis definitions of equality which are designed to focus exclusively on one ground of inequality, e.g. sex or religion or race. However, the discrimination that Muslim women suffer through headscarf bans operates at the margins of race, religion and gender. It is a form of intersectional discrimination which leads to a quantitative increase in the amount of discrimination; as well as a qualitative change in how multiple discrimination undermines Muslim women’s agency. The structure of single-axis equality, with its focus on symmetry and comparison, is inappropriate where there is more than one ground for discrimination: e.g. sex and religion and race. Methods that treat equality around a single axis as an either/or choice between criteria such as gender and religion are inadequate for addressing acute and subtle form of intersectional discrimination. The need for a single hypothetical comparator within single axis equality forces a stark choice. If gender is chosen then majoritarian definitions of woman may marginalise the needs of Muslim women. If religion is preferred then this often reflects the needs of the Muslim man as the representative of religion rather than Muslim women. Complex equality, unlike single axis equality, is an alternative formulation of the problem which changes the frame for analysing patriarchy. As well as examining gender oppression by Muslim men within minority Muslim communities, complex equality also takes into account the power of the state and majority women vis a vis Muslim women.” (Emphasis mine)

Therefore, the Karnataka notification which in effect restricts female Muslim students from wearing Hijabs along with their uniforms has a discriminatory effect that intersects at least with two personal identities- gender and religion. Hence, the restriction is one that has an effect of intersectional discrimination.

The courts should avoid the application of the tests laid down in Fraser or Griggs to the Hijab case

I will start by acknowledging that the doctrine of indirect discrimination is in its nascent stages of legal development in India. But that shouldn’t stop the courts from applying the doctrine of indirect discrimination to the Hijab case which is a textbook case of indirect discrimination – one where the restrictions may seem facially neutral, but has a disparate impact on female Muslim students who wear the Hijab. The Indian Courts on the question of indirect discrimination have relied on the Fraser v. Canada and Griggs v. Duke Power Company, as had been mentioned in a previous essay on this blog. I argue, why the courts should not apply the two tests in this specific case.

As I had mentioned in the previous section, the current case is one that involves a group of persons (female Muslim students) who face discrimination due to their intersecting identities. In Griggs v. Duke Power, the question before the Supreme Court of the United States of America was whether the employment requirements had a disparate impact on African-Americans because of their race. In the case of Fraser v. Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada evolved the indirect discrimination test in a case where a pension plan had an effect of adverse impact discrimination on women. Thereby, it can be observed that the courts in these two cases have evolved the test in the specific context where the individuals have been subjected to indirect discrimination on a singular aspect of their identity i.e., race or gender.

These tests have been applied by the Indian Courts primarily in cases of indirect discrimination where a group of persons or an individual has been subjected to discrimination on the basis of one factor of their identity. For example, in Nitisha v. Union of India (where the Supreme Court applied the Fraser test), the court looked into whether the requirement laid down for women to attain permanent commission in the Indian Army was one that had the effect of gender-based discrimination. Similarly, in Madhu v. Northern Railways (where the Supreme Court applied the disparate impact principles laid down in Griggs v. Duke Power) the Delhi HC looked into indirect discrimination where the discriminating factor was only gender.

On the other hand, In Patan Jamal Vali v. State of Andhra Pradesh, the Supreme Court remarked on the dangers of courts adopting a legal analysis which looks at discrimination only through a single axis in cases where an intersectional approach is required. The relevant parts of the judgment are as follows:

“A single axis approach to violence and discrimination renders invisible such minority experiences within a broader group since it formulates identity as “totemic” and “homogenous”. Laws tend to focus on a singular identity due to the apparent clarity a monistic identity provides in legal analysis where an individual claiming differential treatment or violence can argue that “but for” that identity, they would have been treated in the same way as a comparator. Therefore, their treatment is irrational and unjustified.

By exhibiting attentiveness to the ‘matrix of domination’ created by the intersecting patterns at play, the Court can more effectively conduct an intersectionality analysis. A legal analysis focused on delineating specific dimensions of oppression running along a single axis whether it be caste, disability or gender fails to take into account the overarching matrix of domination that operates to marginalise an individual.” (Emphasis supplied)

Thereby, tests laid down in Fraser or Griggs which have been formulated in a context where the affected persons were subjected to discrimination on a single factor of their identity should not be applied to the Hijab Case wherein the persons are being exposed to indirect discrimination due to their intersectional identities. If either of the two tests are applied to the latter case it renders invisible the discrimination faced by the female Muslim students by putting them into a homogenous religious group of ‘Muslims’ and does not acknowledge the specific dimension of oppression that interacts with their religious and gender identity. 

The present case demands for the import of the test laid down in the Sarika judgment

In the case of Sarika Angel Watkins v. The Governing Body of Aberdare Girls’ High School , the England and Wales High Court examined whether a girl student from a minority religious community in the region i.e., the Sikh community, was subjected to indirect discrimination. As one can notice, the judgment begins with a recognition of how ‘school girls’ had lost cases before the court where they exerted their right to wear articles of faith along with their school uniform. The judgment also recognises her gender and religious identification, and addresses her as a ‘Sikh girl’ or ‘Sikh school girl’, resulting in acknowledging her intersectional identity. Similarly, the Kenyan Court of Appeals decision in Mohamed Fugicha v. Methodist Church looked into the question of indirect discrimination in a case where hijabs were restricted due to which a certain groups of students faced indirect discrimination. The group in this case were female Muslim students who were affected by the discrimination due to their intersectional identities (religion and gender). The Kenyan Court of Appeals applied the test laid down in the Sarika judgment. Though the courts may not have explicitly addressed the aspect of intersectional discrimination of persons in these cases, they have applied the specific test to recognise the indirect discrimination, where they have identified the groups with their intersectional identities as either ‘Sikh school girl’ or ‘female Muslim students’ as the case maybe. Thereby, Sarika test is more appropriate to cases where the doctrine of indirect discrimination is invoked with respect to persons who may be disparately impacted due to their intersecting identities since they formulated and applied in such contexts.

The Sarika judgment and the Essential Religious Practices Test

The judgment in Sarika referred to the following factors laid down in the case of R (Williamson and others) v Secretary of State for Education [2005] 2AC 246 to access whether a religious belief in the case was one that was genuine:

(a) …when the genuineness of a claimant’s professed belief is in issue in the proceedings, the court will inquire into and decide this issue as an issue of fact…”;

(b) …the court is concerned to ensure an assertion of religious belief is made in good faith ‘neither fictitious, nor capricious and that it is not an artifice’…”;

(c) …emphatically it is not for the court to embark on an inquiry into the asserted belief and judges its “validity” by some objective standard such as the source material upon which the claimant founds his belief or the orthodox teaching of the religion in question or the extent to which the claimant’s belief conforms to or differs from the views of other professing the same religion…”; and that 

(d) …the relevance of objective factors such as source material is, at most, that they may throw light on whether the professed belief is genuinely held.

It can thereby be seen that the third factor for accessing whether a religious belief is genuine expressly states that the court should not embark on an inquiry and judge such a practice on the metric of some objective standard such as the source of the material upon which the person based their religious belief on. Similarly, Kenyan Court of Appeals while applying the Sarika test in Mohamed Fugicha held:

“It is important to observe at this point that it is not for the courts to judge on the basis of some ‘independent or objective’ criterion the correctness of the beliefs that give rise to Muslim girls’ belief that the particular practice is of utmost or exceptional importance to them.  It is enough only to be satisfied that the said beliefs are genuinely held.”

Therefore, if the Sarika test is applied to the Hijab case, to prove the whether the belief is genuine in the case a claim of indirect discrimination is brought, the court will only need to look into whether the belief is genuinely held. It need not apply the Essential Religious Practices test.

Reasonable Accommodation and Indirect Discrimination

In NALSA v. Union of India, the Supreme Court recognized that the principle of non-discrimination goes beyond the prevention of discrimination and extends to remedying systemic discrimination that persons may suffer due to their identities. One such remedy is the notion of ‘reasonable accommodation’.  The following is the relevant portion of the judgment:

In international human rights law, equality is found upon two complementary principles: non-discrimination and reasonable differentiation. The principle of non-discrimination seeks to ensure that all persons can equally enjoy and exercise all their rights and freedoms. Discrimination occurs due to arbitrary denial of opportunities for equal participation. For example, when public facilities and services are set on standards out of the reach of the TGs, it leads to exclusion and denial of rights. Equality not only implies preventing discrimination (example, the protection of individuals against unfavourable treatment by introducing anti-discrimination laws), but goes beyond in remedying discrimination against groups suffering systematic discrimination in society. In concrete terms, it means embracing the notion of positive rights, affirmative action and reasonable accommodation.

In Madhu v. Northern Railways, while addressing the aspect of indirect discrimination the Delhi High Court referred to the following excerpt from the judgment in Jeeja Ghosh v. Union of India:

“Equality not only implies preventing discrimination (example, the protection of individuals against unfavourable treatment by introducing anti-discrimination laws), but goes beyond in remedying discrimination against groups suffering systematic discrimination in society.”

It is important to interpret this reference by understanding what the judgment in Jeeja Ghosh addressed. The Supreme Court in Jeeja Ghosh recognised the principle of reasonable accommodation for disabled persons (who were systematically discriminated in this case) in a bid to remedy discrimination that they had faced. It also mentioned that such reasonable accommodation has to be made in the interest of substantive equality.  Therefore, when the Delhi High Court in Madhu referred to this specific excerpt, it in effect recognised that remedying discrimination also includes within it allowing reasonable accommodation to those groups that face systemic discrimination beyond the realm of disability.

Similarly, in Nitisha v. Union of India, the court mentioned, while referring to the judgments in Jeeja Ghosh v. Union of India and Vikas Kumar v. UPSC, that the Supreme Court has recognised reasonable accommodation as a ‘substantive equality facilitator’ while discussing indirect discrimination. Thereby it can be noticed that the courts have acknowledged the need for the principle of reasonable accommodation to be applied to cases involving indirect discrimination for the realisation of substantive equality.

The Supreme Court in Ravinder Kumar Dhariwal v. Union of India held that the initiating disciplinary proceedings against a mentally disabled person (in the said factual background) amounted to indirect discrimination. The judgment referred to the case of the Supreme Court of Canada in British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v. BCGSEU, and recognised that in case prima facie discrimination exists, the burden shifts on the person or entity who discriminates to justify the discrimination and to prove that it did indeed provide for reasonable accommodation. The Supreme Court used this three stage test while discussing indirect discrimination. The relevant extract is as follows:

In British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v. BCGSEU 83, the Canadian Supreme Court held that once it is established that prima facie discrimination exists, the burden shifts on the employer to justify the discrimination, which involves proving that it provided reasonable accommodation. The court developed a three-stage test based on proportionality to determine whether an employer may use the bona fide occupational requirement.

Thereby, the burden in the present case, will fall on the relevant authorities of the Karnataka government to prove that measures to allow reasonable accommodation were provided for the students who are at the receiving end of the discrimination. It must however be kept in mind that Indian Courts have explicitly recognized the principle of reasonable accommodation, for the most part, in cases relating to disability rights.

Conclusion

The judgments delivered by the Indian courts on indirect discrimination are a testament to transformative constitutionalism, one where the courts have not hesitated to borrow from other jurisdictions in order to ensure that there is not a formalistic interpretation of equality. Even though the Supreme Court of India has commented in certain judgments (such as Nitisha v. Union of India) on how the doctrine of indirect discrimination is at its nascent stages, one can observe that that hasn’t stopped the courts from using the doctrine in those cases or expanding the contours of the doctrine’s application with due regard to the specific nature of each case. Such a commitment to substantive equality, in my opinion, is only strengthened, when the unique nature of the interaction between indirect discrimination and intersectional discrimination is recognized in the Hijab case.

Guest Post: Deconstructing the Paternalism in Section 66(1)(b) – Treasa Josfine v. State of Kerala

[This is a guest post by Unnati Ghia.]

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On 9^th April 2021, the Kerala High Court in Treasa Josfine v. State of Kerala directed the State authorities to consider an application submitted by the petitioner (a female trainee engineer) for the post of a Safety Officer in Kerala Minerals and Metals Ltd, on the grounds that she had been denied opportunity on the basis of her sex.

The petitioner’s grievance was that the notification published by the State inviting applications for the post applied only to male candidates, which was discriminatory under Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution. The counter affidavit filed by the State argued that the notification was in compliance with Section 66(1)(b) of the Factories Act, 1948. Section 66(1)(b) states that “no woman shall be required or allowed to work in any factory except between the hours of 6 A.M. and 7 P.M”. The submission of the State was that the post of a Safety Officer required the person so engaged to work round the clock, even during the night if required. Therefore, women could not be hired for this position under the provisions of the Factories Act. 

Reasoning of the Court

The Court in Treasa Josfine relied on two key decisions of the Kerala High Court. The first decision was that of Hindustan Latex Ltd. v Maniamma, which, in my opinion, does not appear to be a case under Section 66(1)(b). In Hindustan Latex, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court observed that special provisions for women under Article 15(3) constituted an exception to sex discrimination under Article 14.

In Leela v State of Kerala, another Division Bench took the view that Section 66(1)(b) was a beneficial provision under Article 15(3). The Bench held that Section 66(1)(b) ensured that women were not taken away from their families, and they were protected from the “hazards” of working at night.

The Court also relied on Vasantha R v Union of India, where the Madras High Court held Section 66(1)(b) to be discriminatory under Articles 14, 15 and 16. Interestingly, the Madras High Court observed the validity of Section 66(1)(b) must be tested under Articles 14 and 15(1) because it was a restriction on women, as opposed to being a protective provision under Article 15(3).

In Treasa Josfine, Justice Anu Sivaraman agreed that Section 66(1)(b) is a beneficial provision intended to protect women. However, the Court observed that the Factories Act was enacted at a different time and in a different socio-economic context, particularly with respect to the roles played by women in society. Given this context, Section 66(1)(b)’s force could only be utilised to protect women, but would not constitute a reason to deny them engagement and opportunity if they are fully qualified [paragraph 15]. On this basis, the Court set aside the notification and held it to be violative of Articles 14, 15 and 16. 

The premise of the Court’s decision in Treasa Josfine is that the change in the roles played by women as they shift from domestic labour to wage labour warrants a different interpretation of Section 66(1)(b) [paragraph 14]. The Court relies on the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Ministry of Defence v. Babita Puniya, which held that justifications founded in stereotypical assumptions about women do not constitute a valid basis for denying opportunity. In light of this, the Kerala High Court held the denial of opportunity to the petitioner under Section 66(1)(b) is “completely untenable and unacceptable”. 

Within this reasoning, it is not clear which stereotype has caught the scrutiny of the court and rendered the notification unconstitutional. The Court refers to the fact that women capably work round the clock jobs in several industries today. From this, one may infer that the assumption that qualified women cannot work in a night shift or beyond 7 p.m. is the problematic stereotype in this case. If so, the application of Babita Puniya to this case is valid. 

However, this does little to detract from Section 66(1)(b) as it stands — that women cannot be employed for tasks beyond 7 p.m. The issues identified by Sivaraman J. in the notification therefore stand equally true for the main provision. Yet, the constitutionality of Section 66(1)(b) vis-à-vis the decision in Babita Puniya was not examined by the Court. 

There are two reasons as to why the Kerala High Court in Treasa Josfine may have refrained from entering into this discussion. First, the Judge sitting singly was bound by the previous Division Bench decisions in Hindustan Latex and Leela, and was obligated to follow the position taken in those decisions. Second, the petitioner appears to have challenged the constitutionality of Section 66(1)(b) only to the extent that it impacted her participation in the selection process. 

In this post, I now present reasons for why Section 66(1)(b) cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny under Article 15, in light of the same principles as identified by the High Court. 

Unconstitutionality of Section 66(1)(b)

The premise of Section 66(1)(b) is that women do not have the capability to protect themselves in a job that requires them to work at night. Thus, the denial of opportunity to women under Section 66(1)(b) is justified on the basis of a need for security. What are the issues with this approach?

First, it presumes women to be hapless victims requiring robust protection from the State. This is not to say that the workplace cannot be an unsafe environment for women, but this could be addressed without victimising them. Second, the approach under Section 66(1)(b) places the burden of this protection on women themselves by completely removing them from a “dangerous” work environment, as opposed to taking steps to remedy the threat therein. 

Another rationale behind Section 66(1)(b) was highlighted by the Kerala High Court in Leela — the provision ensures that women would be able to take care of their families and that their children would not suffer. A similar argument was made before the Madras High Court in Vasantha R v Union of India. The Madras High Court held that women holding household duties is not a universal phenomenon, and did not constitute a reason for denying a night shift. 

Interestingly, this rationale was also explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court in Babita Puniya. There, Chandrachud J. observed that the argument that women could not meet their requirements of service due to domestic obligations was itself predicated on the stereotype of such obligations resting solely on women. Women are often pushed into and limited to the domestic sphere by the patriarchy itself. This is why it is problematic to deny employment opportunities or benefits on the basis that women have to devote time to the home, because it further entrenches the public-private divide. 

On the basis of the anti-stereotyping principle in Babita Puniya then, Section 66(1)(b) cannot pass muster. An obvious response to this argument is that even if it employs a stereotype, it is a special provision permitted under Article 15(3). For instance, the Kerala High Court maintains that Section 66(1)(b) is a special and beneficial provision for women, intended to protect them from exploitation. Admittedly, provisions such as Section 66(1)(b) have posed a legal conundrum, because courts generally conflate provisions protecting or prima facie in favour of women as necessarily being materially beneficial to them. 

The perils of this form of “protective discrimination” in favour of women have already been acknowledged by the Supreme Court in Anuj Garg v. Hotel Association. In Anuj Garg, a law prohibiting women from being employed in establishments serving intoxicants was struck down because it ended up “victimizing its subject in the name of protection”. Such laws presume that women inherently lack agency, and thus are examples of State sponsored paternalism. 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had pointed out a similar phenomenon in the United States in the aftermath of Muller v Oregon. In Muller, the US Supreme Court upheld a statute that prohibited women from working for more than 10 hours a day, due to the “unique vulnerability” of women. The decision in Muller resulted in a series of “protective” labor laws for women, which prohibited night shifts, limited the loads they could carry and excluded them from certain jobs completely. According to Ginsburg J., these laws prevented women from competing with men, resulting in lower paying jobs, and also reinforced traditional gender roles — all in the name of “protection”. Subsequently, in the first case Ginsburg J. argued before the US Supreme Court, Justice Brennan observed that protective labor laws placing women on a pedestal were, on closer inspection, often a cage.

Similar forms of gender discrimination are justified by Indian courts under Article 15(3). In response, Gautam Bhatia for instance has argued that “special provisions” must bear some relation to the historical and structural subordination of women. This would ensure that the State must identify and attempt to remedy specific forms of disadvantage, as opposed to provisions that pay lip service to equality and limit the agency of women. 

Conclusion

Notably, states such as Maharashtra and Kerala have altered the position under Section 66(1)(b) by permitting the employment of women post 7 p.m. provided that all safety and security safeguards are met by the employer. This leaves the employment of women entirely to the option of the employer, but does little to incentivise them, especially given the benefit of a statutory justification to deny employment in the first place. In light of these reasons, Section 66(1)(b) must not be understood as a “special or beneficial” provision for women. Instead, laws that mandate safeguards and security for women at the workplace without removing them from the workplace altogether would be better suited to the objective of a “beneficial provision” for women. 

Gender Equality in the Armed Forces

[Editor’s Note: Justice is an indivisible concept. We cannot, therefore, discuss contemporary Supreme Court judgments without also acknowledging the Court’s failure – at an institutional level – to do justice in the case involving sexual harassment allegations against a former Chief Justice. This editorial caveat will remain in place for all future posts on this blog dealing with the Supreme Court, until there is a material change in circumstances.]

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On this blog, we have discussed in some detail the judicial approach to gender discrimination under the Constitution. Two recent judgments of the Supreme Court – delivered by a bench of Chandrachud and Rastogi JJ – have made an important contribution to contemporary jurisprudence on the subject. Both concerned the intersection of service law and gender equality – and, in particular, gender equality in the armed forces, a particularly fraught and thorny topic.

Babita Puniya

Secretary, Ministry of Defence v Babita Puniya concerned the grant of Permanent Commissions in the Army. Section 12 of the Army Act prohibits the recruitment of “females” into the army except where – and to the extent that – the Central Government might allow. In 1992, the Union Government issued notifications allowing women to join certain branches/cadres of the army (all were non-combat roles). These notifications – which were intended to operate for a stipulated period of five years – were later extended in 1996, 2005, and 2006, along with promotional opportunities. Then, in 2008, the Ministry of Defence issued a Circular authorising the grant of Permanent Commissions [PCs] to women, but only prospectively, and only in certain cadres.

Adjudicating writ petitions challenging this, the High Court of Delhi held in 2010 that women who had entered the army on Short Service Commissions [“SSCs”], were entitled to PCs on par with their male colleagues. The Union of India appealed this decision to the Supreme Court. During the pendency of the hearing, it also proposed a separate policy for grant of PCs to women, which nonetheless was limited to staff positions, imposed different standards, as well as only applying prospectively.

Before the Supreme Court, the Union argued that this was a matter of policy – based on a consideration of “the inherent dangers involved in serving in the Army, adverse conditions of service which include an absence of privacy in field and insurgency areas, maternity issues and child care” (paragraph 28), and that in any event, Article 33 of the Constitution allowed for the fundamental rights chapter to be restricted when it came to the Armed Forces. It also argued that “the Army has to cater for spouse postings, “long absence on account of maternity leave, child care leave” as a result of which “the legitimate dues of male officers have to be compromised”.” (paragraph 31). In a Written Note, the Union of India added to these submissions by referring – once again – to “pregnancy, motherhood, and domestic obligations”, differences in physical capabilities, the “peculiar dynamics” of all-male units, and issues of hygiene.

These submissions were rejected by the Court. Chandrachud j. began his analysis by noting that while Article 33 did allow for restrictions upon fundamental rights in the Armed Forces, it also made it clear that these rights could be restricted only to the extent that it was necessary to ensure the proper discharge of duties and the maintenance of discipline. On the other hand, from 1991, there had been an “evolutionary process” towards inducting women into the armed forces (paragraph 50) – to the extent that in the 2019 Policy Document submitted before the Court, even PCs (in certain fields) had been opened up to women. In fact, this created an internal contradictions within the submissions of the union of India, as:

The decision of the Union Government to extend the grant of PC to other corps in the support arms and services recognizes that the physiological features of a woman have no significance to her equal entitlements under the Constitution. (paragraph 52)

Going further, however, the Chandrachud J. noted that:

The submissions advanced in the note tendered to this Court are based on sex stereotypes premised on assumptions about socially ascribed roles of gender which discriminate against women. Underlying the statement that it is a “greater challenge” for women officers to meet the hazards of service “owing to their prolonged absence during pregnancy, motherhood and domestic obligations towards their children and families” is a strong stereotype which assumes that domestic obligations rest solely on women. Reliance on the “inherent physiological differences between men and women” rests in a deeply entrenched stereotypical and constitutionally flawed notion that women are the “weaker‟ sex and may not undertake tasks that are „too arduous‟ for them. Arguments founded on the physical strengths and weaknesses of men and women and on assumptions about women in the social context of marriage and family do not constitute a constitutionally valid basis for denying equal opportunity to women officers. To deny the grant of PCs to women officers on the ground that this would upset the “peculiar dynamics” in a unit casts an undue burden on women officers which has been claimed as a ground for excluding women. The written note also relies on the “minimal facilities for habitat and hygiene” as a ground for suggesting that women officers in the services must not be deployed in conflict zones. The respondents have placed on record that 30% of the total women officers are in fact deputed to conflict areas. (paragraph 54)

On a similar basis, the Court also rejected the blanket prohibition upon the grant of PCs to women in command appointments (and restricted only to staff appointments), noting that the Army bore the burden of justifying such exclusion, and that in any event, it could only be done on a case to case basis (paragraph 67). In sum, therefore, it accepted the 2019 Policy, but (a) made it applicable across the board, and (b) removed its limited scope to staff appointments.

Annie Nagaraja

The case of Union of India vs Lt. Cdr. Annie Nagaraja – involving Permanent Commissions in the Navy – was somewhat more complex. According to Section 9 of the Navy Act, women are not eligible for enrolment in the Indian Navy, except where – and on such terms and conditions – that the Central Government might specify (Chandrachud J.’s judgment refers to an interesting piece of history – at the time of the drafting of the Navy Act in 1957, there was a strong dissenting note in the Parliamentary Joint Committee objecting to this exclusion of women).

Now – simplifying the position somewhat – under the Navy Regulations, one of the qualifications for being inducted into the navy on a Short Service Commission [“SSC”] is that the applicant must be an “unmarried male.” SSC officers may subsequently be granted Permanent Commissions [“PCs”] on the basis of vacancies and suitability. In 1991, the Union Government issued a notification opening up certain branches of the Navy to women. Women, therefore, were entitled to take up SSCs, and it was noted that the policy for the grant of PCs would be formulated subsequently. Subsequently, in 1998, by another Notification under Section 9 of the Navy Act, more branches of the Navy were opened up to women. Soon after that in, in 1999, in a communication from the Ministry of Defence, it was clarified that women could serve on board ships, and that the policy governing PCs would be that which was already stipulated in the Regulations (see above).

Then, in 2008, the MoD issued another communication, stating that PCs to women SSC officers would be considered prospectively, and limited only to certain branches. In other words, women who had joined the Navy as SSCs following the opening up of recruitment after 1991, would not be considered for PCs. It was this that triggered the initial challenge before the Delhi High Court and the Armed Forces Tribunal, before finally winding its way to the Supreme Court.

Chandrachud J. began his analysis by noting that both the 1991 and 1998 Notifications lifted the bar for enrolment of women into the Navy, in certain branches (without expressly limiting them to SSCs) (paragraph 60). Consequently, when in 1999 the Government stipulated that the normal Regulations would apply for grant of PCs (which made them conditional on vacancies, suitability, and a recommendation from the Chief of Naval Staff), it was obvious that this would “cover both men and women serving on SSCs (paragraphs 64 – 65, 67). Consequently, the 2008 communication – which did not refer to these previous notifications and communications – could not change that fact.

As with Babita Puniya’s Case, however, the judgment’s bite lay in the analysis that came after the hard work of service law was done. In a section called “The Stereotypical Sailor”, the Court noted that the government had attempted to justify its stand by arguing that sea-duties were ill-suited for women as “there is no return to base”, and that Russian naval vessels had no separate bathrooms for women (paragraph 72). These arguments were roundly rejected, with Chandrachud J. noting that “the contention that certain sea-going duties are ill-suited to women officers is premised on sex stereotypes that male officers are more suited to certain duties by virtue of the physiological characteristics.” (paragraph 74), and that:

arguments founded on the physical strengths and weaknesses of men and women do not constitute a constitutionally valid basis for denying equal opportunity to women officers. To accept the contention urged by the ASG would be to approve the socially ascribed gender roles which a commitment to equal worth and dignity of every individual belies. (paragraph 74)

The Court concluded by moulding the relief in accordance with the different positions occupied by different sets of claimants, on the basis of the legal position that eligibility for PCs flowed from the 1991 and 1998 Notifications, and that the 2008 Communication making PCs prospctive from that date, was not valid (to that extent).

Analysis

Both judgments raise a few interesting issues. The first is that they add to the growing body of jurisprudence that brings the anti-stereotyping lens to issues of gender discrimination. In both cases, differential treatment of men and women in the armed forces was sought to be justified by invoking stereotypes about physical and psychological capabilities – broad generalisations that reflected deep-rooted beliefs and assumptions about gender roles in society. As we have argued before on this blog, Articles 14 and 15 rule out discrimination based on such stereotypes and generalisations. While the Court’s historical record on this front – especially in the domain of service law – has been patchy, at least since 2007, there has been a more consistent application of the anti-stereotyping principle. These judgments, with their clear invocation of the principle, will make it even more difficult in the future for stereotype-based arguments to be justified in Court.

Secondly, these judgments reiterate that in a constitutional democracy, the Armed Forces are not – and cannot be – a rights-free zone. While Article 33 admittedly authorises the restriction of fundamental rights to the Armed Forces, any such restriction must be “necessary” for allowing the Armed Forces to fulfil their goals, and the burden of sowing necessity lies upon those who want to exclude the operation of fundamental rights. In both judgments, the Court was careful in how it navigated this thorny area: it reiterated the need for Article 33 to exist, while also ensuring that it could not be used as a sword to cut down the rest of Part III.

Thirdly, these judgments demonstrate an oft-neglected truth: that the Court ought not to bear the sole burden of articulating and enforcing fundamental rights. What is notable about both these cases is – as the Court itself noted in Babita Puniya – that the induction of women into the armed forces had been an evolutionary process that had begun in 1992. The State’s sweeping arguments about the unsuitability of women to be granted PCs, therefore, were undercut by its own evolving policy decisions. This made the task of the Court substantially easier: instead of forcing gender equality down the throat of a recalcitrant institution, it could simply point to how the institution’s own logic was at variance with the exclusionary arguments that it now put forward. Thus, instead of ending up in an adverserial situation – where the Armed Forces justified discrimination and the Court opposed it – what happened here was that the Court engaged in an immanent critique, essentially requiring the Armed Forces to follow their own policies to a logical conclusion.

Fourthly – and relatedly – this also shows, perhaps, the limitations of the possibility of reform through adjudication. Notably, the relevant provisions of both the Army and the Navy Act, which bar the recruitment of women into the Forces except where the government allows it – were not under challenge, and the Court was at pains to point out that fact, apart from also noting that the suitability of women for combat roles was not an issue about it. What would happen, however, if those Sections were to be challenged? Logically speaking, the anti-stereotyping approach – and, more particularly, the Court’s explicit rejection of blanket prohibition of PCs to women in command areas – clearly rules out the blanket restriction on recruitment in the Armed Forces (except where the government permits). Would that be a step to far for the Court to take, especially if the State and the Armed Forces were to take the defence of national security considerations? That would be interesting to see, but at the same time, the Army’s own opening up over the years – combined with the Court’s incremental approach in these cases – probably obviates the immediate imperative for more radical challenges.

Guest Post: The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill is Unconstitutional

[This is a guest post by Nivedhitha K. The piece was written before the latest draft of the Bill – which exempts certain North-Eastern states from the operation of the Amendment – was made available.]

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The BJP-led Union government is determined to table the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in this parliamentary session, after it lapsed earlier in the year. The bill proposes to amend Section 2 (b) of the Citizenship Act – which defines ‘illegal immigrants’ – by excluding “persons belonging to minority communities, namely, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan” from the ambit of “illegal immigrants”. The bill also reduces the period of residence in India for the acquisition of Indian citizenship through naturalization to six years from the earlier period of twelve years. Thus, under the amendment, these ‘minority communities’ from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are no longer ‘illegal’ immigrants, and they can obtain Indian citizenship through naturalization if they have resided in India for six years.

The amendment makes two classifications: first, a classification based on religion by excluding Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis, and Christians from the ambit of illegal immigrants; and secondly, a classification based on country, by restricting the benefit of acquiring citizenship through naturalization to minority immigrants only from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Religion-based classification

The first argument for the unconstitutionality of the CAB is that it enacts an impermissible, religious-based classification under Article 14 of the Constitution. To understand why, we first need to look at Article 15. Article 15 provides for specific grounds – religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth – that cannot form the basis for discrimination. Thus, the grounds in Article 15 indicate impermissible discrimination, i.e the law should effect discrimination based on these grounds to be violative of Article 15. In Navtej, Chandrachud J and Indu Malhotra J did not declare section 377 of the IPC as violative of Article 15 only because it effected classification based on “sex”. Rather the test used was whether the classification was based on Article 15 grounds, and if so whether it effected discrimination. Therefore, for the violation of Article 15, both classification based on the grounds and discrimination in effect will have to be proved. However, the  Citizenship Amendment Bill cannot be subjected to Article 15, because that Article is only applicable to citizens (immigrants, by definitions, are not citizens).

This takes us to Article 14. The traditional test for an Article 14 violation requires the classification to have an intelligible differentia and a reasonable nexus with the legislative object. In Anwar Ali Sarkar, it was explained that intelligible differentia means that there must be a yardstick to differentiate between those included in, and excluded from the group. However, in Navtej, an important interpretive advance was made upon this. Indu Malhotra J, in her judgment, infused Article 15 grounds into Article 14. She interpreted intelligible differentia to mean reasonable differentia. She required the intelligible differentia test to fulfil two sub-tests: one there must be a yardstick to differentiate between those included in and excluded from the group, and two, that yardstick must itself be reasonable. She observed: “Where a legislation discriminates on the basis of an intrinsic and core trait of an individual, it cannot form a reasonable classification based on an intelligible differentia”. Therefore, the yardstick is reasonable only if it is not based on an intrinsic and core trait of an individual. She then referred to Article 15 grounds to explain that they form an intrinsic and core trait of an individual. She noted: “Race, caste, sex, and place of birth are aspects over which a person has no control, ergo they are immutable. On the other hand, religion is a fundamental choice of a person. Discrimination based on any of these grounds would undermine an individual’s personal autonomy.” Therefore, contrary to Article 15, the test for Article 14 violation is based on impermissible classification. Impermissible classification means that a particular principle cannot be used to classify because it is constitutionally irrelevant. Religion is a facet of personal autonomy, and a classification based on it is an impermissible classification.

The infusion of impermissible classification into the intelligible differentia test is justifiable for two reasons. First, while the objective of Article 15 is anti-discrimination, the objective of Article 14 is to provide equal protection of laws. Thus, Article 14 will be violated if the classification is unreasonable, while Article 15 will be violated only if there is discrimination based on the classification. Second, the interpretation of Article 14 on the lines of Article 15 aligns with the argument that fundamental rights are not watertight compartments. This understanding began with Fazl Ali J’s dissent in A.K Gopalan v. The State of Madras on the interpretation of the ‘procedure established by law’ clause. The interpretation was cemented through the evolution of the golden triangle in Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, and strengthened by Chandrachud J’s interpretation of Article 26 in the Sabarimala case.  Therefore, classification based on religion is prima facie impermissible and violative of Article 14.

The second argument against religion-based classification in this case turns on its inability to fulfil Article 14’s nexus prong. The object of the amendment is to ‘protect those who have faced religious persecutions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Bangladesh’. However, by excluding Muslims from the category of ‘persecuted’, the amendment is based on the false premise that only minorities face religious persecution in a Muslim-majority country. The amendment makes an easy – but untrue – classification between minority and majority religion. This assumption is similar to assuming that all Hindus in India are treated alike irrespective of caste. However, within the majority Muslim religion, there is persecution based on sect. For example, in Pakistan, the Shias face religious persecution. Ahmadiyyas who align themselves with the Sunni school also face persecution. Unless persecution of a sect within the majority religion is recognised, the classification – of majority and minority – will have no nexus with the object of protecting those who face religious persecution.

Country based classification

The country based classification violates Article 14 as it fails the “manifest arbitrariness” test. Nariman J in Shayara Bano noted, “manifest arbitrariness, therefore, must be something done by the legislature capriciously, irrationally and/or without adequate determining principle. Also, when something is done which is excessive and disproportionate, such legislation would be manifestly arbitrary.” The common threads that run through the three selected countries in the CAB are that they are Muslim-majority countries, and that they are India’s neighbours. The first rationale has been addressed above. If, however, the relevant countries have been selected because they are India’s neighbors, the exclusion of the other neighbors – such as Sri Lanka and Myanmar where people face religious persecution – must be justified. However, there is no justification because there is no adequate determining principle that guides the classification. The following points elucidate the absence of a determining principle for the classification.

1. Principle 1: Pakistan and Bangladesh were part of British India. Illegal immigrants from there could still generically be considered of Indian origin. However, with the inclusion of Afghanistan, it is evident that the classification is not based on the principle of divided India and undivided India.
2. Principle 2: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a State religion. However, the classification cannot be on the basis of a State religion, as Sri Lanka prescribes Buddhism as the State religion.
3. Principle 3: Degrees of harm. In Chiranjit Lal Chowdhury it was held that the legislature is free to recognize the degrees of harm and confine the classification to where harm is the clearest. However, if the CAB is based on the degrees of harm then the Rohingyas of Myanmar ought to be included as the 2013 UN report states that the Rohingyas are the most persecuted in the world.
4. Principle 4: The classification might be limited to singling out persecuted religious minorities. However, on this logic, Sri Lankan Eelam Tamils must also be included, as the Tamil Eelams are persecuted based on religion (Hinduism) and ethnicity.

Therefore, it is evident that the exclusion of the other neighboring countries where people face religious persecution is not justified, because the inclusion of these three countries is not based on any determining principle be it Indian origin, state religion, the degree of harm, or of persecuted minorities. Thus, the country based classification is violative of Article 14 as it suffers from the vice of manifest arbitrariness.

Under-inclusiveness and Deference

Having established the violation of Article 14, it is also necessary to address two counter arguments that arise. The first counter argument is that under-inclusiveness cannot render the law unconstitutional. The second counter argument is that the court would have to exercise deferential review – by showing deference to legislative wisdom – while deciding cases on citizenship, refugees etc.

Indian courts have permitted under-inclusive laws on grounds of administrative necessity and legislative experimentation (see State of Gujarat v. Ambika Mills). However, in N.P Basheer v. the State of Kerala, it was held that under-inclusiveness would withstand scrutiny under Article 14 only when it is ‘nominal’. However, the decision neither explains nor defines the word ‘nominal’. Nonetheless, there is ample evidence now for what cannot be considered “nominal”: for example, in the case of Sowmithri Vishnu, the constitutionality of the adultery provision was challenged. The court observed that Section 497 was under-inclusive but allowed deference to legislative wisdom. However, in Joseph Shine, the court performed a volte face and struck down section 497 because it violated the ‘personal autonomy’ of women. The importance of personal autonomy in Article 14 challenges is also evident from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Indian Young Lawyers (Sabarimala) and Navtej. Hence, if the differentiation violates personal autonomy – in this case, religion – under-inclusiveness is certainly not ‘nominal’.

What of the argument that deference to legislative wisdom is required on issues of citizenship, refugees and the like, as they fall under the realm of legislative policy? On the contrary, I suggest that this argument should be turned on its head: precisely because the issue concerns citizenship, deference is undesirable. It has already been argued above that the court should not allow deference to issues that concern personal autonomy. In Navtej, Indu Malhotra J and Dipak Mishra (writing for himself and A.M. Khanwilkar) referred to Article 15 grounds as illustrative of personal autonomy. They also accepted the analogous grounds argument, by holding Section 377 violative of Article 15 because it discriminates on sexual orientation which is a ground analogous to grounds specified textually in Article 15. Therefore, very little deference must be allowed to grounds under Article 15, and grounds that are analogous to Article 15 grounds, since they are based on personal autonomy. The argument now is that citizenship is a ground analogous to Article 15 grounds, since it is an important facet of personal autonomy. The Canadian Supreme Court in Andrew v. Law Society of British Columbia held that citizenship is a ground analogous to Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom – a provision which is similar to Article 15 of the COI – because it is a ‘personal characteristic’. It was observed that analogous grounds must be determined based on the “place of a group in the socio-political-legal fabric of the society.” Where a number of important rights are accrued on the basis of citizenship, non-citizens as a minority whose interests are brushed off would fall within the analogous category. Hence, the heightened level of scrutiny to a classification based on personal characteristics (grounds analogous to Article 15, and grounds in Article 15) should prevent the court from applying a deferential review.

Conclusion

Consolidating the arguments above, religion-based classification is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution because religion is a constitutionally impermissible ground for classification, and the classification does not have any nexus with the object of the bill. The country-based classification is manifestly arbitrary and violative of Article 14, as it is not based on any determining principle. The argument that under-inclusiveness cannot be a ground for unconstitutionality is countered by explaining that a law that is grounded on personal autonomy (i.e religion) is not merely a case of nominal under-inclusiveness. And the argument on application of deferential review to issues concerning citizenship and refugees is inapplicable, as citizenship falls within the ambit of analogous grounds, for which deference should not be allowed.

The Sabarimala Judgment – II: Justice Malhotra, Group Autonomy, and Cultural Dissent

I had originally intended this series to follow a more familiar chronology – moving through the concurring opinions, and ending with Justice Indu Malhotra’s dissent. However, on a closer reading of the judgment, it strikes me that Malhotra J.’s dissent raises some crucial points, which remain unanswered in the opinions of the Chief Justice and Nariman J. – but are addressed in Chandrachud J.’s concurrence. For this reason, I will use this post to discuss the dissenting opinion, and flag its foundational arguments, and then – in the next post – examine Chandrachud J.’s concurrence.

Maintainability

How unusual – but how refreshing – to see a judge taking maintainability seriously, and that too in a PIL! Malhotra J. starts her analysis with the following observation:

The right to move the Supreme Court under Article 32 for violation of Fundamental Rights, must be based on a pleading that the Petitioners’ personal rights to worship in this Temple have been violated. The Petitioners do not claim to be devotees of the Sabarimala Temple where Lord Ayyappa is believed to have manifested himself as a ‘Naishtik Brahmachari’. To determine the validity of long-standing religious customs and usages of a sect, at the instance of an association/Intervenors who are “involved in social developmental activities especially activities related to upliftment of women and helping them become aware of their rights”, would require this Court to decide religious questions at the behest of persons who do not subscribe to this faith. (paragraph 7.2).

Malhotra J. goes on to warn that the issue of maintainability is not a “mere technicality” in this case, but something more important. It would open the floodgates for “interlopers” to question all kinds of religious beliefs and practices, something that would cause even graver peril for “religious minorities.” (paragraph 7.3) Malhotra J. then sums up:

The right to equality under Article 14 in matters of religion and religious beliefs has to be viewed differently. It has to be adjudged amongst the worshippers of a particular religion or shrine, who are aggrieved by certain practises which are found to be oppressive or pernicious. (paragraph 7.4).

While Malhotra J.’s concern about the floodgates is well-taken, I am not sure that that, by itself, can be a ground for rejecting the PIL on the basis of maintainability. However, I believe that in observing that “[The Article 14 claim] has to be adjudged amongst the worshippers of a particular religion or shrine“, Malhotra J. articulates a crucial point, which demonstrates why, even in the PIL era, the issue of maintainability is particularly crucial to this case.

To understand why, let us examine the nature of the claim. The claim is for women between the ages of ten and fifty to be allowed to enter Sabarimala. This claim is set up against the argument of the Sabarimala priest (and certain other devotees), that the entry of women is barred by religious custom. Sabarimala, therefore, is a classic example of what Madhavi Sundar calls “cultural dissent“: norms and values defined and imposed by cultural gatekeepers and dominant groups, have been challenged.

That cultural dissent is at the heart of Sabarimala is recognised by both the Chief Justice and Nariman J., in their opinions. The Chief Justice notes that Article 25(1) protects both inter-group and intra-group rights. In a very interesting observation, Nariman J. suggests that when there is internal dissent about a practice, its “essential” character to the religion (and therefore, its claim to protection under Article 25(1)) will be thrown in doubt. However, what is crucial to note is this: by its very nature, a claim to cultural dissent has to be articulated by the dissenters themselves. Because what is under challenge – as Justice Malhotra recognises – is the question of whether certain practices – internal to the religion – are “oppressive” or not. And given that religions are self-contained and self-referential systems of belief and practice, the question of what constitutes “oppression” will, in most cases, be an internal question.

Let me be clear: this is not an argument against the Courts interfering in religious practices on the touchstone of equality and non-discrimination. Quite the opposite: when marginalised groups within cultures or religions challenge oppressive norms or practices, more often than not, they will need an external authority (such as Courts, acting under the Constitution) to support them in that struggle. But what I am saying is that the claim must originate from the marginalised groups themselves. An external authority cannot assume the mantle of speaking on their behalf.

There is, of course, a significant exception to this: when the marginalised group is (literally) silenced from articulating its claims. But I feel considerable hesitation in applying that standard to Sabarimala. Are we going to say that every woman devotee at Sabarimala is either too brainwashed or too terrorised to approach the Court for her rights? That would seem to me to be not only factually incorrect, but highly demeaning as well – a saviour complex redolent of Lila Abu-Lughod’s excoriation of liberal interventionism in her tellingly-titled article, “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?“

I recognise that this is an unpopular position, I believe that the Majority should have voted with Malhotra J. to dismiss the PIL on grounds of maintainability, while granting liberty to any affected party to approach the Court through a writ petition.

Group Autonomy

Running through Malhotra J.’s judgment is a vision of group autonomy. She believes that the Constitution’s religious freedom clauses act to insulate religious groups from having their beliefs and practices subjected to constitutional scrutiny. As she observes:

It would compel the Court to undertake judicial review under Article 14 to delineate the rationality of the religious beliefs or practises, which would be outside the ken of the Courts. It is not for the courts to determine which of these practises of a faith are to be struck down, except if they are pernicious, oppressive, or a social evil, like Sati. (paragraph 8.2)

The devil, of course, is in the detail. Malhotra J. concedes that practices that are “pernicious, oppressive, or a social evil” can be reviewed by Courts. But that, indeed, was the Petitioners’ argument in Sabarimala: excluding women from the temple was a pernicious and oppressive practice, even though it did not (of course) reach the level of Sati. How does Malhotra J. respond to this? There is no immediate answer, but we do get something of an answer late in the judgment. In paragraph 10.13, Malhotra J. observes:

Judicial review of religious practises ought not to be undertaken, as the Court cannot impose its morality or rationality with respect to the form of worship of a deity. Doing so would negate the freedom to practise one’s religion according to one’s faith and beliefs. It would amount to rationalising religion, faith and beliefs, which is outside the ken of Courts. (paragraph 10.13)

The argument, therefore, appears to be this: a practice like Sati is not simply “religious”. In actually killing women, its impacts go far beyond, and into the “real world.” The question of the right to worship at Sabarimala, however, remains a question internal to the religion: its a moral issue, a question of whether within the community of Sabarimala devotees, men and women are treated equally. For Justice Malhotra, that is not something that Courts can go into. As she observes towards the end of the judgment:

Worship has two elements – the worshipper, and the worshipped. The right to worship under Article 25 cannot be claimed in the absence of the deity in the particular form in which he has manifested himself. (paragraph 13.9)

 

For Malhotra J., therefore, unlike Sati, Sabarimala is a pure question of faith, and therefore immune from judicial review and the application of constitutional norms of equality and non-discrimination.

Why is this so? Malhotra J. buttresses this point by two further arguments, both of which are grounded in principles of group autonomy. The first is that of “essential religious practices” [ERPs]. Malhotra J. takes strong issue with the Majority for holding that the exclusion of women is not an essential religious practice (and therefore not protected by Article 25(1)), and argues, instead, that this determination should be left solely to the religious community itself (paragraph 10.10). In the present case, Malhotra J. relies upon the statements of the Sabarimala Thanthri and the Travancore Devaswom Board to the effect that “the limited restriction on access of women during the notified age of 10 to 50 years, is a religious practise which is central and integral to the tenets of this shrine, since the deity has manifested himself in the form of a ‘Naishtik Brahmachari’.” (paragraph 13.7)

This is an important point, because it goes entirely against the grain of six decades of ERP jurisprudence, where the Court – relying upon textual and scriptural materials – makes this determination. It is also, in my opinion, correct (as I have pointed out on this blog before): the Courts – as a number of scholars have argued for a while now – is entirely unequipped to make determinations about what practice is or is not “essential” to religion: it lacks both the competence and the legitimacy to do so.

There is, of course, a latent peril in advocating this view: and that is that in any community (religious or otherwise) norms and practices are inevitably imposed top-down by dominant groups, who are invariably male. But this is exactly where Malhotra J.’s initial point about maintainability comes in: it is one thing when within a group, norms and practices are challenged, and the marginalised sub-groups invoke the Court’s aid. But it is another thing when an external party comes to Court, and is opposed by the religious community’s gatekeepers: in that situation, Malhotra J.’s views about the nature and scope of the ERP test make eminent sense.

The second argument advanced by Malhotra J. pertains to constitutional pluralism. It was argued by the Petitioners that discrimination against women runs counter to constitutional morality. Malhotra J. turns this argument on its head, noting that constitutional morality in India’s plural society requires respect and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs, which have their own sets of practices that might nevertheless appear immoral or irrational to outsiders (paragraphs 11.2, 11.4, 11.6 & 11.8).

The full argument, therefore, is this: our Constitution respects religious pluralism. Pluralism entails granting to the diverse religious groups and communities within our nation, the freedom of internal self-government, and the freedom to decide what norms and practices are integral to their existence and functioning. Where these norms or practices result in actual social harm, the Court can step in; however, the Court cannot intervene when the grounds of challenge are limited to bare immorality, irrationality, or unequal treatment. And the Court can especially not do so when the challenge is brought by external parties.

Religious Denomination

Malhotra J. then addresses the statutory point: that is, the question of whether, in view of Section 3 of the 1965 Act (guaranteeing non-discriminatory access to “all” classes), whether Rule 3(b) (that allows for excluding women if custom demands it) is ultra vires. Malhotra J. holds that it is not, on the ground that the worshippers of Lord Ayappa at Sabarimala constitute a separate “religious denomination”, and is therefore exempted from the operation of Section 3 as per the Act itself (through a specific proviso).

Unfortunately – and in stark contrast with the rest of Malhotra J.’s judgment – this part is disappointingly sketchy. On the basis of a Government notification, Malhotra J. asserts that the worshippers of Lord Ayappa at Sabarimala “follow a common faith, and have common beliefs and practises.” (paragraph 12.3) She then goes on to note, on the basis of precedent, that:

If there are clear attributes that there exists a sect, which is identifiable as being distinct by its beliefs and practises, and having a collection of followers who follow the same faith, it would be identified as a ‘religious denomination’. (paragraph 12.8)

Malhotra J. recognises, however, that this is a considerably more relaxed threshold than that articulated by previous judgments, and followed by the Majority. She tries to get around this by once again implicitly invoking the group autonomy principle, and arguing that a “liberal” interpretation should be accorded to the question of what constitutes a “religious denomination.” But this will not do: unlike the question of essential religious practices, which are required for threshold protection under the Constitution’s religious freedom clause, religious denominations are entitled to special and differentiated rights under Article 26: maintenance of institutions, acquisition and administration of property, and (textually) a greater autonomy in determining internal religious matters. For this reason, the critique of the essential religious practices standards cannot be uncritically applies to the definition of religious denominations: there are good reasons for a higher threshold, adjudicated by Courts. To depart from that principle would require a detailed and persuasive argument, which Malhotra J. does not offer. And indeed, she appears to recognise this herself, when she notes at paragraph 12.10:

The proper forum to ascertain whether a certain sect constitutes a religious denomination or not, would be more appropriately determined by a civil court, where both parties are given the opportunity of leading evidence to establish their case.

Miscellaneous

Malhotra J. makes two further findings. She rejects the argument – advanced by Amicus Curae – that Article 15(2) includes temples under the definition of “places of public resort.” And she also rejects the argument – advanced by the Interveners – that exclusion of women on grounds of menstruation amounts to “untouchability” under Article 17 of the Constitution. Both these arguments are based on the structure and the drafting history of the Constitution. With respect to Article 15(2), I believe the Malhotra J. is unarguably correct. Article 17 will be addressed in the next post.

Conclusion

Justice Malhotra’s dissent is powerful and persuasive on many counts. On maintainability, on essential religious practices, and on constitutional pluralism, I believe that her arguments are correct, and truer to the constitutional text and history than prevailing Indian religious freedom jurisprudence, which the opinions of CJI Misra and Nariman J. closely hew to.

Where then lies the disagreement? At one level, it is statutory: if Malhotra J.’s religious denomination argument is incorrect, then her case falls purely on statutory grounds, and the Majority is vindicated. I have a deeper disagreement, however, with the foundational assumption of Malhotra J.’s dissent, which comes through in her paragraph differentiating Sabarimala and Sati: the assumption is that in India, you can cleanly separate the religious and the social. This is a reality that has been recognised throughout history: in the Drafting Committee, Alladi Krishnawamy Iyer wryly remarked that “there is no religious matter that is not also a social matter.” In the Constituent Assembly, Ambedkar memorably spoke about how vast religious conceptions are in India, covering everything from birth to death. In his dissenting opinion in Saifuddin, Chief Justice Sinha discussed how religious excommunication had a debilitating impact upon civil rights. And so on. The point is this: it is a mistake to uncritically assume that Sabarimala is simply a right-to-worship case, a straightforward internal dispute within a religious community. It is a mistake, because it ignores how deeply intertwined religious, social, and public life is in India, and how discrimination within one sphere inevitably spills over into other spheres. Therefore, Malhotra J. is entirely correct when she says that practices that are “pernicious, oppressive, or a social evil” can be subjected to judicial review. But the question of what constitutes “oppressiveness” is more nuanced and complex than she allows.

It is that nuance which forms the heart of Chandrachud J.’s concurrence, which is what we shall turn to in then ext post.

From Koushal to Navtej Johar: Round-Up

With the conclusion of the Section 377 litigation, here is a round-up of the ICLP essays, which have spanned the last five years.

A. Pre-Koushal

1. “Textualism v Structural Analysis – or why the Court ought to uphold Naz Foundation” (25 September, 2013).
2. “Is there an interpretive methodology for construing colonial era statutes?” (10 October, 2013).
3. “Naz Foundation and homosexuality: a humorous, historical aside” (10 December, 2013).

B. Koushal

1. “The Unbearable Wrongness of Koushal v Naz Foundation” (11 December, 2013)
2. “Koushal v Naz Foundation: Picking up the pieces and exploring the grounds of review” (12 December, 2013).
3. “Koushal v Naz: Issue-wise Round-up of commentaries” (13 December, 2013).

C. NALSA

1. “NALSA v UoI: The Supreme Court on transsexuals, and the future of Koushal v Naz“ (15 April, 2014).
2. “Nalsa v UoI and Koushal v Naz: Acts against the order of nature?” (16 April, 2014).

D. The Interregnum

1. “Foucault, Rubenfeld, Naz Foundation, and Article 15″, (4 October, 2014).
2. “Guest post: Sex, sexual orientation, and the courts” (27 August, 2015) (by Vansh Gupta).
3. “Notes from a foreign field: The Supreme Court of Belize strikes down its anti-LGBT law” (13 August, 2016).

E. Puttaswamy

1. “The Supreme Court’s right to privacy judgment – III: Privacy, surveillance, and the human body” (29 August, 2017).
2. “The Supreme Court’s right to privacy judgment – V: Privacy and decisional autonomy” (31 August, 2017).

F. Navtej Johar 

1. “Section 377 referred to a Constitution Bench: Some Issues” (8 January, 2018).
2. “Guest Post: Inclusive pluralism or majoritarian nationalism: Article 15, Section 377, and who we really are” (9 July, 2018) (by Tarunabh Khaitan)
3. “Guest post: on the presumption of constitutionality for pre-constitutional laws” (11 July, 2018) (by Tarunabh Khaitan).
4. “Guest post: against natural rights – why the Supreme Court should NOT declare the right to intimacy as a natural right” (17 July, 2018) (by Tarunabh Khaitan).
5. “Civilisation has been brutal: Navtej Johar, Section 377, and the Supreme Court’s moment of atonement” (6 September, 2018).
6. “Guest Post: Navtej Johar v Union of India: Key highlights” (9 September, 2018) (by Abhinav Chandrachud).
7. “Guest Post: Navtej Johar v Union of India: What remains of Section 377?” (10 September, 2018) (by Vanshaj Jain).
8.  “Navtej Johar v Union of India: Rethinking Rajbala and the way forward” (15 September, 2018).

 

Navtej Johar v Union of India: Rethinking Rajbala, and the Way Forward

(This is the concluding post in our series of essays examining the Supreme Court’s judgment in Navtej Johar v Union of India. An earlier version of this piece appeared in Scroll.)

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As the dust settles over Navtej Johar v Union of India, attention must turn to the future. When, last year, the Supreme Court delivered the famous privacy judgment, it was immediately clear that it was both important in its own right, but also, equally important in the possibilities that it opened up for future expansion of civil rights. Navtej Johar – as I mentioned in my initial essay – was itself made possible by the privacy judgment. And Navtej Johar – in turn – now opens up a series of possibilities. Here are three of them:

A. “Manifest arbitrariness” as a ground for striking down laws

As readers of the blog are aware, we have previously discussed the long judicial tussle between the “classification” and the “arbitrariness” tests under Article 14 of the Constitution. To cut the long story short, the traditional rational classification standard under Article 14 has always been deferential towards the State, and incapable of addressing complex inequalities. Arbitrariness was introduced to mitigate the shortcomings of the classification standard, but has itself ended up being rather … arbitrary. Notwithstanding that, there has always been controversy over whether the arbitrariness standard is limited to invalidating executive action (which would, essentially, reduce it to a glorified Wednesbury principle), or whether it can be applied to invalidate statutes as well.

In the Triple Talaq judgment last year, at least two judges out of five held that “manifest arbitrariness” could, indeed, be applied by courts to invalidate statutes. It was unclear whether the “swing opinion” – that of Joseph J. – endorsed this principle. Subsequent judgments (delivered by two judges) appeared to believe that it did. However, the controversy has now been set to rest. In Navtej Johar – as Abhinav Chandrachud points out in his guest post – all five judges partially strike down S. 377 on grounds of manifest arbitrariness.

What does this mean for civil rights? There is one immediate implication. Three years ago, in Rajbala v State of Haryana (which I have analysed here), the Supreme Court upheld the State of Haryana’s amendments to the Panchayati Raj Act, which had imposed educational, debt and property-based restrictions upon the right to contest Panchayat elections. The judgment expressly held that the “arbitrariness standard” could not – and would not – be applied to test the law under Article 14. As Mihir Naniwadekar pointed out at the time, there was a strong argument that the Rajbala bench was bound to apply the arbitrariness standard, under existing precedent. Two judges out of five believed so in Triple Talaq, when they expressly stated that Rajbala stood overruled on this point. And that view has not been vindicated by the verdict of all five judges in Navtej Johar. Rajbala, therefore, requires reconsideration.

(N.B. I should add that, as previously discussed on this blog, I do not think the arbitrariness standard – as it stands, and without further development – is constitutionally defensible. However, it is what it is.)

B. Discrimination as a contextual enquiry

Justice Chandrachud’s concurring judgment in Navtej Johar argues at great length that the question of whether a law or a rule has a discriminatory effect must be answered by taking into account the background social context in which the law operates. In 2013, in its judgment upholding Section 377, the Supreme Court in Koushal v Naz Foundation had held that in criminalizing “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, the section only penalized “acts”, and not persons; consequently, the question of discrimination did not arise. In a detailed repudiation of this facile argument, Justice Chandrachud examines how, when Section 377 interacts with the existing social and moral proscriptions, its effect is to confine the LGBT+ community to the proverbial closet, causing great harm to their individuality, personhood, and dignity. Whatever the form of the law, therefore, its effect – when placed within the social context – is discriminatory.

This focus on effect and context has the potential to significantly advance discrimination jurisprudence in India. As an example, take once again the judgment in Rajbala v State of Haryana. While upholding educational disqualifications in that case, the Court noted that it was only education that allowed people to distinguish between right and wrong. What the Court didn’t take into account, however, was that despite our legal and constitutional framework, access to education continues to be skewed along caste, gender, and economic lines, for a multiplicity of reasons (ranging from stereotypes about women’s role in the family, to simple economic stress that does not permit the luxury of sending children to school). This has been pointed out repeatedly, and is well-documented. For example:

A glimpse at Haryana’s background tells us how deeply it is entrenched in patriarchy. It has one of the most skewed sex ratios in India — 877 overall and 837 in the 0-6 year age group. Male literacy rate is 85 pc, against 66 pc for females, a significant gap.

 

Therefore, while the law in Rajbala appeared to be about incentivizing education (a laudable goal), its effect was to further marginalize from the political process those who were already most marginalised. If Chandrachud J.’s reasoning in Navtej Johar is followed, this background context cannot be ignored.

The Supreme Court has an immediate opportunity to correct its error in Rajbala: the State of Rajasthan passed a very similar law at around the same time, which is yet to be adjudicated upon by the Court.

It is, after all, never out of season to dream.

 C. Analogous grounds

In her concurring opinion, Justice Indu Malhotra argues that discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation violates Article 15(1) of the Constitution. Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination on grounds of sex, race, religion, caste, and place of birth. Justice Malhotra takes the view, however, that Article 15(1) covers not only these five stipulated grounds, but also “analogous” grounds: that is, characteristics that bear a family resemblance to sex, race, religion etc. What is common to the “grounds” under 15(1) – Justice Malhotra argues – is that they are either immutable (i.e., impossible or extremely difficult to change), and/or deeply linked to personal autonomy. Sexual orientation, thus, is an “analogous ground”, and therefore protected under Article 15(1).

Malhotra J.’s interpretation is difficult to sustain on the text of Article 15(1), which makes it clear that it refers to a “closed list of grounds” – i.e., the Court cannot add to the five grounds stipulated therein. However, if Justice Malhotra’s view is accepted in future judgments, it does open up Article 15(1) to a range of discrimination claims: for example, age, disability, political belief, and economic status are just a few of the possible “grounds” that can be invoked as analogous, and therefore, protected by a non-discrimination guarantee. Here, once again, the Court must tread carefully, and develop the law in an incremental and rigorous fashion.

Conclusion

For a long time now, the Indian Supreme Court’s thinking on issues of equality and non-discrimination has been static. This is contrary to other jurisdictions such as Canada and South Africa, where judges have deepened their understanding of these questions, over time. Navtej Johar’s judgment provides us with a gateway to updating our own understanding of Articles 14 and 15(1) of the Constitution, to match with ever more sophisticated accounts of what constitutes inequality and discrimination. However, it is only the foundation stone: the future development of the law is now in the hands of the courts.

“Civilization has been brutal”: Navtej Johar, Section 377, and the Supreme Court’s Moment of Atonement

Last year, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v Union of India, the Supreme Court did a remarkable thing. While declaring that privacy was a fundamental right under the Indian Constitution, five out of nine judges also noted that the Court’s 2013 judgment in Suresh Kumar Koushal v Naz Foundation (an entirely unconnected proceeding) had been wrongly decided. In Koushal, the constitutionality of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code – that criminalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” – had been upheld, and the 2009 Delhi High Court judgment reading it down to exclude consenting same-sex relations had been overturned. How deeply the Koushal Court had erred (in the view of the Puttaswamy bench) was evident from the fact that in his plurality opinion, Chandrachud J. singled it out as one of the two “discordant notes” in constitutional history (the other was the Emergency-era ADM Jabalpur judgment).

The privacy judgment made it clear that Koushal was living on borrowed time. That time came to an end today, when a Constitution Bench of the Court, in Navtej Johar v Union of India, formally overruled Koushal, effectively restored the Delhi High Court judgment in Naz Foundation, and unambiguously held that the LGTB+ community was entitled to equal rights under Articles 14, 15, 19, 21, and the rest of the Constitution’s fundamental rights chapter.

Four concurring judgments were delivered in Navtej Johar. While concurring on the outcome of the case – that Section 377 violated Article 14 (equal protection of laws), 15(1) (non-discrimination on grounds of sex), 19(1)(a) (freedom of expression) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) – the judges came at the issues from different angles. In this essay, I shall discuss the different strands of constitutional reasoning that we find in Navtej Johar, and their implications for the future.

A. The Chief Justice and the Primacy of Choice 

The Chief Justice wrote for himself and Justice Khanwilkar. His is a wide-ranging judgment, but at its heart lies the idea of choice. This is not as straightforward an argument as it seems at first blush. Recall that there has been a long-standing debate about whether sexual orientation is “natural” and “immutable”, a question of choice, or somewhere in between upon a spectrum. It has always been intuitively tempting to argue that sexual orientation is simply a question of having been “born this way.” It is tempting because if sexual orientation is “natural”, and something beyond the individual’s power to alter, then criminalising it is ipso facto irrational. Our criminal law is based upon the idea of holding people to account for acts that they are responsible for. How then can you criminalise something that is inherent, and which cannot be controlled?

The “born this way” discourse, however, has been strongly criticised. As this article points out, for example:

If biology determines our expression, then there is no reason to think about making better or different worlds. It has all been decided, from the moment we became Homo sapiens. Yet if we recognise sexuality as constructed, we open up essential discussions about some of the most important aspects of life. Who are we sexually intimate with, and how? What do we do with the consequences of sexual intimacy (offspring and health)? Who is responsible for children’s lives, development and education in a society? The arrangement of sexual relations is the key social building block of society’s reproduction. Hence the importance of gay marriage. Yet we have a surprisingly limited way of engaging this conversation; indeed, biological determinism helps us avoid the issue altogether. A host of social issues are pressing down upon us, and we cannot effectively address them if we deny the reality of the human condition, including sexuality, and thereby close off discussions before they begin.

And, as the work of Foucault and other scholars has demonstrated, essentialising sexuality (and sexual orientation) runs the risk of trapping people in pre-constructed identities, in a manner that – in the long run – is anything but emancipatory.

To the judgment’s merit, it keeps both these propositions in an equilibrium, and refrains from choosing one over the other. So, in paragraph 9, the Chief Justice observes:

When we talk about identity from the constitutional spectrum, it cannot be pigeon-holed singularly to one‘s orientation that may be associated with his/her birth and the feelings he/she develops when he/she grows up. Such a narrow perception may initially sound to subserve the purpose of justice but on a studied scrutiny, it is soon realized that the limited recognition keeps the individual choice at bay.

“Natural orientation” and “choice” are discussed in a complementary manner throughout the judgment (see, e.g., paragraphs 109 and 148). Admittedly, at various points in the judgment, the Chief Justice comes close to slipping back into the former type of vocabulary, using words such as “inherent”, “innate”, “by birth”, and so on (paragraph 143 – 144). A holistic reading of the judgment, however, makes it clear that the concept of choice (that he also frames as individual self-determination) is as important to the exercise of constitutional rights as the “naturalness” of sexual orientation. Indeed, in paragraph 140, while defining the aspects sexual orientation, the Chief Justice refers both to “inherent orientation” and “demonstration of choice.”

And, perhaps most importantly, it is in the language of choice that the Chief Justice rejects Koushal’s argument (indeed, the only argument actually made in Koushal) that as Section 377 only criminalises “acts” and not “persons”, it does not violate constitutional guarantees:

… individuality of a person and the acceptance of identity invite advertence to some necessary concepts which eventually recognize the constitutional status of an individual that resultantly brushes aside the ―act‖ and respects the dignity and choice of the individual. (paragraph 81)

Additionally, the argument from dignity is also framed in the language of choice:

Dignity while expressive of choice is averse to creation of any dent. When biological expression, be it an orientation or optional expression of choice, is faced with impediment, albeit through any imposition of law, the individual‘s natural and constitutional right is dented. (paragraph 132)

This articulation of “choice” then becomes an important basis of the Chief Justice’s finding that Section 377 violates the Constitution. Because it disrespects individual choice, Section 377 is both irrational and “manifestly arbitrary”, and violates Article 14 (paragraph 240). This is, of course, in addition to the violation of expressive rights under Article 19(1)(a), and the right to privacy under Article 21 – which too is defined in terms of “intimacy in privacy as a matter of choice” (Conclusion X).

B. Justice Nariman and the Presumption of Constitutionality

Justice Nariman’s opinion shares many of the interpretive commitments of the Chief Justice. He too holds that Section 377 violates dignity (paragraph 79), and that it is “manifestly arbitrary” (paragraph 82). Nariman J. arrives at the second conclusion from a slightly different route. He examines the 2017 Mental Healthcare Act, which expressly prohibits discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation (in the domain of mental health). Combining this with scientific evidence, he notes that the natural/unnatural distinction that is at the heart of Section 377 has no rational basis, and consequently, violates Article 14 (paragraph 82).

By far the most interesting aspect of Nariman J.’s opinion, however, is his holding that pre-constitutional laws do not enjoy any presumption of constitutionality. He notes that:

The presumption of constitutionality of a statute is premised on the fact that Parliament understands the needs of the people, and that, as per the separation of powers doctrine, Parliament is aware of its limitations in enacting laws – it can only enact laws which do not fall within List II of Schedule VII of the Constitution of India, and cannot transgress the fundamental rights of the citizens and other constitutional provisions in doing so. Parliament is therefore deemed to be aware of the aforesaid constitutional limitations. Where, however, a pre-constitution law is made by either a foreign legislature or body, none of these parameters obtain. It is therefore clear that no such presumption attaches to a pre-constitutional statute like the Indian Penal Code.

While I believe this is a correct argument, it is nonetheless an incomplete argument. Nariman J. does not tackle one important objection: that Parliament’s failure to repeal a pre-constitutional law indicates an implicit acceptance. It also seems to prove too much (for example, could someone challenging the Indian Contract Act of 1872 argue that there is no presumption of constitutionality?). Consequently, I would suggest that Nariman J.’s argument requires to be slightly deepened: the reason why pre-Constitutional laws should not carry a presumption of constitutionality is because, insofar as they affect fundamental rights, they impose a double-burden upon the individuals they impact: first, these individuals had no say in the framing of these laws (since they were passed by a non-democratic colonial regime); and secondly, now that these laws exist, it is those who suffer their effects who have to mobilise and convince parliament to repeal them. It is this double-burden that is unacceptable, and therefore mandates that the presumption of constitutionality be withheld from those colonial laws that affect fundamental rights (I have made this argument in greater detail elsewhere).

C. Justice Chandrachud and Indirect Discrimination

For me, the most interesting – and complex – argument in the case was that Section 377 violates Article 15(1) (non-discrimination on grounds of sex), and a combined reading of Articles 15 (non-discrimination) and 14 (equality before law). In Chandrachud J.’s opinion, this argument receives detailed treatment. As a prelude, he begins with the following, critical observation:

Equating the content of equality with the reasonableness of a classification on which a law is based advances the cause of legal formalism. The problem with the classification test is that what constitutes a reasonable classification is reduced to a mere formula: the quest for an intelligible differentia and the rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved. In doing so, the test of classification risks elevating form over substance. The danger inherent in legal formalism lies in its inability to lay threadbare the values which guide the process of judging constitutional rights. (paragraph 27)

This is an important rebuke, not just to the Koushal Court, but also to the dominant strand of equality thinking on the Supreme Court, which – even in 2018 – continues to apply the “classification test” to judge equality violations (i.e., a law is unconstitutional if there is either an “unintelligible differentia” between the things that it classifies, or if the classification bears no rational nexus to the State goal).

Chandrachud J. goes on to note:

Article 14 has a substantive content on which, together with liberty and dignity, the edifice of the Constitution is built. Simply put, in that avatar, it reflects the quest for ensuring fair treatment of the individual in every aspect of human endeavor and in every facet of human existence.

What does this “substantive content” of equality entail? This takes us to the heart of Chandrachud J.’s judgment, which his treatment of the Article 15(1) claim. As he notes, Indian courts have historically interpreted the statement “The State shall not discriminate on grounds … only of sex” in a highly formalistic manner, and have upheld laws that – in their language – use more than one or a differently worded ground (for example, in Koushal, the Court held that because Section 377 only criminalised “carnal intercourse against the order of nature”, there was no question of discriminating against identities). This, however, is flawed: what matters is the effect of law upon the exercise of fundamental rights. (paragraph 34)

The effect of law must be understood by taking into account the broader social context within which law is embedded. It must therefore take into account “the intersectional nature of sex discrimination, which cannot be said to operate in isolation of other identities, especially from the socio-political and economic context.” (paragraph 36) Drawing from progressive gender equality judgments such as Anuj Garg, Chandrachud J. concludes that:

A provision challenged as being ultra vires the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds only of sex under Article 15(1) is to be assessed not by the objects of the state in enacting it, but by the effect that the provision has on affected individuals and on their fundamental rights. Any ground of discrimination, direct or indirect, which is founded on a particular understanding of the role of the sex, would not be distinguishable from the discrimination which is prohibited by Article 15 on the grounds only of sex.

The words “direct or indirect” are crucial, since this is the first time that the Supreme Court has explicitly recognised the concept of indirect discrimination (i.e., where facially neutral laws – such as S. 377 – nonetheless have a disproportionate impact upon a segment of the population).

How must Section 377 be analysed within this constitutional framework? After recording the experiences of LGBT+ individuals subjected to the “shadow of criminality”, Chandrachud J. notes that “Section 377 criminalizes behaviour that does not conform to the heterosexual expectations of society. In doing so it perpetuates a symbiotic relationship between anti-homosexual legislation and traditional gender roles.” (paragraph 44) How does it do so? The answer comes immediately afterwords:

If individuals as well as society hold strong beliefs about gender roles – that men (to be characteristically reductive) are unemotional, socially dominant, breadwinners that are attracted to women and women are emotional, socially submissive, caretakers that are attracted to men – it is unlikely that such persons or society at large will accept that the idea that two men or two women could maintain a relationship. (paragraph 44)

It is in this manner that Chandrachud J. draws together the indirectly discriminatory character of the facially neutral S. 377, the effects test, the prohibition of “sex” discrimination under Article 15(1) in a case about “sexual orientation”, and the importance of social context to the enquiry.  Here is how the argument goes:

1. Article 15(1) prohibits sex discrimination.
2.  Discrimination on grounds of sex is premised upon stereotypes about appropriate gender roles, and the binary between “man” and “woman”.
3. It is these stereotypes about gender roles that constitute the bases of criminalising same sex relations.
4. Section 377 may be neutrally worded, but it’s effect is primarily – and disproportionately – upon the LGBT community. It is therefore indirectly discriminatory on grounds of sexual orientation.
5. Since the basis of that indirect discrimination lies in stereotypes about gender roles (the background social context), S. 377 violates Article 15(1) of the Constitution.

Consequently, to sum up:

Statutes like Section 377 give people ammunition to say “this is what a man is” by giving them a law which says “this is what a man is not.” Thus, laws that affect non-heterosexuals rest upon a normative stereotype: “the bald conviction that certain behavior-for example, sex with women-is appropriate for members of one sex, but not for members of the other sex. (paragraph 51)

As Terry Eagleton wrote in Saint Oscar, his play about Oscar Wilde:

You hold that a man is a man and a woman is a woman. I hold that nothing is ever purely itself, and that the point where it becomes so is known as death. I therefore demand to be defended by metaphysicians rather than by lawyers, and that my jury should be composed of my peers – namely, poets, perverts, vagrants and geniuses.

I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that today represents the most advanced interpretation of Article 15(1) and non-discrimination that has come out of the Supreme Court thus far.

Chandrachud J.’s judgment then goes on to examine Article 19(1)(a), focusing on how S. 377 inhibits the sexual privacy of the LGBT+ community, by forcing them into the closet (paragraph 61). He is careful to notice perhaps the only shortcoming of the Delhi High Court judgment, which was to restrict the right to “private spaces.” Like his judgment in Puttaswamy, Chandrachud J. once again critiques the facile public/private binary, and notes that “the right to sexual privacy, founded on the right to autonomy of a free individual, must capture the right of persons of the community to navigate public places on their own terms, free from state interference.” (paragraph 62) He goes on to discuss the rights to privacy and autonomy (paragraph 65), holds that Article 21 also protects a right to intimacy (paragraph 67), and includes a detailed discussion on how Section 377 inhibits the right to health (including the right to mental health) (Part G). There is also an extended discussion of the limits of criminal law, which concludes with the now-familiar observation that harm to others is the only adequate ground for criminalisation. (paragraph 137)

D. Justice Malhotra and a Truer Vision of Equality  

Justice Malhotra penned a brief, concurring judgment, that discussed Articles 14, 15, 19(1)(a) and 21 in turn. Her judgment, however, takes immutability as the basis for the 14/15 violation. In her view, Section 377 violates Article 14 because:

[It] creates an artificial dichotomy. The natural or innate sexual orientation of a person cannot be a ground for discrimination. Where a legislation discriminates on the basis of an intrinsic and core trait of an individual, it cannot form a reasonable classification based on an intelligible differentia. (paragraph 13)

In my analysis of the Chief Justice’s opinion, I have noted that this view is controversial. Here, however, I want to focus on something else: the second sentence. Malhotra J. argues that where a legislation discriminates on the basis of an “intrinsic or core trait”, it ipso facto fails Article 14; that is, it cannot be counted as a reasonable classification. However, there is nothing inherent about such discrimination that makes it an “unintelligible differentia”, or precludes it from having some “rational nexus” with a possible goal. Consequently, Malhotra J. actually advances a more radical reading: she argues that the very concept of equality under Article 14 rules out certain kinds of classifications at the threshold. In her view, legislation based on an “intrinsic or core trait” fails that threshold inquiry. I would put it slightly differently: legislation based on a core trait (related to personal autonomy), a trait that has been a historical or present site of systemic discrimination, is ruled out under Article 14. This is because, for the reasons given above, I believe that the language of “intrinsic” or “immutable” characteristics is a dangerous road to go down. That, however, is a minor point of difference: what is crucial is that Malhotra J.’s reasoning – in its own way, as Chandrachud J in his way – opens up the transformative potential of Article 14 and 15(1).

Malhotra J.’s argument is important for another reason. In Dipak Sibal, the Supreme Court held that in addition to intelligible differentia and rational nexus, Article 14 also required a “legitimate State purpose.” However, neither Dipak Sibal nor any subsequent case clarified what State purposes may be illegitimate. In Malhotra J.’s opinion, we now have an answer: whatever the differentia, and whatever the nexus, the State is not permitted, under Article 14, to disadvantage groups on the basis of an “intrinsic or core” trait.

E. Odds and Ends 

Malhotra J.’s transformative understanding of Article 14 is the best point for us to segue into some of the overarching themes of the judgment. Why is it that discriminating on the basis of an “intrinsic or core” trait is ruled out by the constitutional vision of equality? Two themes – present in all four judgments – answer the question: constitutional morality and transformative constitutionalism. The Chief Justice notes, for example:

Any attempt to push and shove a homogeneous, uniform, consistent and a standardised philosophy throughout the society would violate the principle of constitutional morality. Devotion and fidelity to constitutional morality must not be equated with the popular sentiment prevalent at a particular point of time. (para 116)

Justice Nariman observes:

It must not be forgotten that Section 377 was the product of the Victorian era, with its attendant puritanical moral values. Victorian morality must give way to constitutional morality as has been recognized in many of our judgments. Constitutional morality is the soul of the Constitution, which is to be found in the Preamble of the Constitution, which declares its ideals and aspirations, and is also to be found in Part III of the Constitution, particularly with respect to those provisions which assure the dignity of the individual. (para 78)

And Chandrachud J.:

The Constitution envisaged a transformation in the order of relations not just between the state and the individual, but also between individuals: in a constitutional order characterized by the Rule of Law, the constitutional commitment to egalitarianism and an anti-discriminatory ethos permeates and infuses these relations. (para 52)

The wheel has turned full circle. It was the Delhi High Court, in Naz Foundation, which first introduced all of us to the grammar of “constitutional morality”, and linked it to the Objectives Resolution, and the qualities of inclusiveness and pluralism at the heart of the Constitution. And, nine years later, this vision of constitutional morality lies at the heart of the decriminalisation of same-sex relations. The reason why Malhotra J. is correct when she holds that legislation discriminating on the basis of “intrinsic or core” traits is ipso facto violative of equality, is because equality – viewed through the lens of constitutional morality – is defined by the values of pluralism and inclusiveness: different forms of life and different ways of being are guaranteed equal treatment, equal concern, and equal respect under the transformative Indian Constitution.

The Road Ahead 

What lies ahead? This was, after all, a limited case: it was a constitutional challenge to Section 377 of the IPC. But as the judges themselves acknowledge, there is much work to be done ahead. As the Chief Justice notes, in his judgment:

Equality does not only imply recognition of individual dignity but also includes within its sphere ensuring of equal opportunity to advance and develop their human potential and social, economic and legal interests of every individual and the process of transformative constitutionalism is dedicated to this purpose. (paragraph 104)

Chandrachud J. likewise notes, in his conclusion, “members of the LGBT community are entitled, as all other citizens, to the full range of constitutional rights including the liberties protected by the Constitution.” This, clearly, indicates at a future beyond mere decriminalisation. It indicates towards civil rights, a guarantee against horizontal discrimination in the domains of housing, education, and access to services (under Article 15(2)), a potential right to affirmative action (on the lines of the NALSA v Union of India), and of course – eventually – equal marriage, if demanded. How rocky the road will be towards full and equal moral membership, of course, remains to be seen.

What of other domains? The judgments of Chandrachud J and Malhotra J, as I have argued above, open new windows for understanding and interpreting Articles 14 and 15(1). Will we see them play out in the future? Will Chandrachud J.’s observations about the limits of criminal law have an impact on litigations concerning bans upon dietary preferences? Will the salutary observations about transformative constitutionalism and the value of the individual percolate into other cases concerning State power and individual rights? In the coming months and years, these questions will be answered.

For today, it remains to be said: five years ago, the Supreme Court committed a grievous error in Koushal v Naz Foundation. Today, the Court has atoned. “Civilization“, observes Chandrachud J., “can be brutal.” That brutality was felt on 11th December 2013, and in the days and months that followed. But today is about the Constitution, and today is about emancipation and liberation.

Navtej Johar v Union of India is a judgment worthy of our transformative Constitution.

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(Disclaimer: The author was one of the lawyers representing Voices against 377, a coalition of organisations challenging S. 377 before the Court.)

Guest Post: The Adultery Challenge – Three Roads Ahead

(This is a guest post by Abhinav Sekhri.)

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The Supreme Court of India is currently hearing a petition filed by Joseph Shine questioning whether the offence of “adultery”, defined and punished under Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 [IPC], and associated procedural rules under Section 198(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code 1973 [Cr.P.C.], are constitutional. The hearings are in full swing, and recent media coverage suggests that the Court is keen on definitely doing something, unlike the previous occasions when the offence was challenged and its validity upheld. The question then is, what might the Court do? This post draws on an article I published some time ago discussing the legality of adultery laws and poses the choices before the Court, discussing the potential pros and cons of going down any of those paths. But first, a quick recap on the law itself.

The Law on Adultery

Section 497 IPC says:

Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.

It criminalises marital infidelity, but not all kinds. The criminal kind needs sexual relations between a person (commonly a man) and the wife of another man, without his consent or connivance. It is not a crime if you cheat on your spouse with an unmarried woman. Further, if you do cheat on your spouse with a married woman, that wife is deemed to be a victim whatever the circumstances. This separate treatment goes further and becomes more problematic when we consider the special procedural rules installed for registering adultery cases.

Indian criminal law follows a principle that anyone can start the criminal law machinery. This rule has exceptions, found in Sections 190-199 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 [Cr.P.C.] (in respect of IPC offences). Section 198 Cr.P.C. creates an exception by restricting persons who can start cases about “Offences against Marriage”, that are defined and punished in Chapter 20 of the IPC. Perhaps respecting the private nature of the underlying conduct, Section 198(1) needs complaints by persons aggrieved by the offence to start cases. It goes on to then tell us who the law considers as aggrieved, and Section 198(2) says:

For the purposes of sub- section (1), no person other than the husband of the woman shall be deemed to be aggrieved by any offence punishable under section 497 or section 498 of the [IPC]: Provided that in the absence of the husband, some person who had care of the woman on his behalf at the time when such offence was committed may, with the leave of the Court, make a complaint on his behalf.

The wife is deemed to be the victim of adultery in Section 497 IPC. But she isn’t aggrieved by the offence to be able to trigger the legal machinery. That aggrieved person will be her husband, and if he isn’t around, his nominee. That is the strange reality of the law on adultery: a victim isn’t aggrieved to exercise her right of launching private prosecution. It is a reality that has survived judicial scrutiny on three prior occasions, but is now again in the spotlight, perhaps for the last time.

The Different Ways of Framing the Problem

Having seen what the law on adultery says, it’s time to turn to what are the problems it seemingly poses. There are different ways to frame this problem, and broadly one could frame the question thus:

• Type I: Is Section 497 IPC illegal because adultery shouldn’t be a crime at all?
• Type II: Are Section 497 IPC and Section 198(2) Cr.P.C. illegal because they perpetuate unconstitutional gender-based discrimination?
• Type III: Is Section 497 IPC illegal because it differentiates within adulterous relationships without any rational basis for that classification?

Historically, the Supreme Court has dealt with the adultery laws on three different occasions. None of these involved a broad Type I Challenge. Instead, the Court has mostly faced Type II Challenges. In Yusuf Abdul Aziz [1954 SCR 930], the petitioner argued that Section 497 IPC was unconstitutional because it unfairly discriminated between men and women – exempting women from punishment. In Sowmithri Vishnu [(1985) Suppl. SCC 137], the petitioner argued that both Section 497 IPC and Section 198(2) Cr.P.C. were bad for unfairly discriminating on the basis of sex. There was a Type III challenge too, where the petitioner argued that Section 497 IPC didn’t have any basis to only punish one kind of adulterous relationship. In V. Revathi [AIR 1988 SC 835], again only a Type II Challenge was made as the petitioner argued that Section 198(2) Cr.P.C. was unconstitutional for unlawfully discriminating against women by not considering them “aggrieved” to trigger the legal process.

Why? Why did nobody make it their primary claim that the Supreme Court should Section 497 and Section 198(2) down because adultery should not be a crime? It was because, at some fundamental level, all these petitioners and their counsel accepted that the Supreme Court is not the place to make these arguments. It is not the Court’s business to decide whether or not certain conduct should be a crime. The decision to criminalise is ultimately a reflection of what conduct the society considers bad enough for it to warrant censure and sanctions. Since society elected a legislature to reflect these, and other choices, the decision to criminalise is traditionally identified as a legislative choice. Parliament decides whether the conduct should be criminalised. When it expresses that will through a statute, the courts are bound to examine the validity of that legislative measure against the minimum barometers set out by the Constitution.

Thus, the previous challenges to the adultery provisions were reflective of this traditional approach: petitioners approached the Court to argue that the manner in which conduct had been criminalised did not pass constitutional muster. The present petition in Joseph Shine is also framed as a traditional Type II Challenge. It argued that the adultery laws perpetuate unconstitutional discrimination, seeking a review of the previous cases where the Court had held otherwise. The Supreme Court issued notice last year and agreed to go down this path primarily because it had a problem with the provisions not being gender neutral. But, going by the news coverage, the Supreme Court now seems to be mulling about whether it wants to engage in a Type I Challenge instead and consider why adultery should be a crime at all. Notice the assumption underlying the question itself: there is a kind of conduct which a legislature cannot make a crime, and the Court can identify this category.

While adultery cases did not involve Type I Challenges, such Challenges to penal statutes themselves are not totally absent from the history of Indian constitutional law. In fact, a number of cases were filed in the 1950s against new social welfare legislation which used criminal punishments against those violating licensing laws, arguing that such conduct could not be a crime. The Court agreed that a category of conduct beyond the scope of criminalisation does exist, and it located this within the Constitution itself in Article 19 rights to freedom read together with its many restrictions. Thus, in Harishankar Bagla [1955 SCR 313], the petitioner unsuccessfully argued that licensing laws on cotton were unconstitutional as they violated the rights guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) and (f). Beyond Article 19, what else might be identified in the category of conduct that can’t be penalised? The intuitive answer is the “right to life and personal liberty” guarantee under Article 21. While the Maneka Gandhi reading of Article 21 only did this indirectly by requiring laws to be “just, fair, and reasonable”, the recent recognition of a right to privacy within Article 21 surely works as a basis to make Type I Challenges.

The Implications of a Narrow or Broad Approach

A Type II Challenge in Joseph Shine would mean considering whether or not the statutes perpetuate illegal discrimination. This would involve testing the law on the basis of Article 14, and also the Maneka Gandhi version of Article 21 to see whether the adultery laws are “just, fair, and reasonable”. But if the Court sticks to its guns and makes the adultery petition a Type I Challenge, then it must do more. It must decide whether consensual sexual relationships between adults can be criminalised, even if they involve marital infidelity. It cannot answer this question by testing the mechanics of the statute under Article 14, but will have to make a substantive inquiry, turning to Article 19(1)(a) or perhaps the right to privacy under Article 21, and the reasonable restrictions to these rights. Thus, the Court would have to decide whether criminalising adultery to protect the “sanctity of marriage” as the Central Government seems to argue, is a purpose falling within the “decency of morality” clause of Article 19(2). Similarly, it would have to engage with Puttuswamy and the separate opinions therein to establish how it will test the state intervention into this sphere of conduct. The statutory provisions on adultery can arguably be found constitutionally wanting in both scenarios. So what should the Court do in this situation? Play it safe and stick to a traditional approach based on the equality clause, or enter the substantive debate on criminalisation. There are pros and cons to both options.

If the Court decides to play it safe, then it can set the record straight on the previous cases. Moreover, it can avoid a debate about what the Court thinks is conduct worthy of criminal sanctions; an expression of societal mores traditionally expressed through elected representatives. But since there are constitutionally protected spheres of conduct, the Court can’t fully avoid that question. If it does, then, decide to go ahead and address the substantive issue fully, it can lead to a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court clearly identifying a set of basic principles that legislatures must adhere to while drafting criminal statutes, and locate these principles within the constitutional text. For instance, if the Court holds consensual sexual relations between adults are beyond the pale of criminal law, it can do so by locating this conduct within the scope of Article 19(1)(a) [right to freedom of speech and expression], or Article 21. Arriving at these basic constitutional minimums would potentially affect many other offences which involve similar conduct, as litigants get emboldened to file petitions. For instance, the principle would extend to excluding this entire category of conduct from the realm of Section 377 IPC, the provision currently criminalising “unnatural sex”, even if it might be consensual and between adults. Ultimately, in the long run, the Court can trigger a fruitful late-spring cleaning of the Augean Stables that are the variety of crimes punishable under many statutes across India.

But there is another side to that coin: the Court will now invite litigation challenging the legality of substantive crimes and further trample upon traditionally legislative functions. Already, the Court has broadened its jurisdiction to assume plenipotentiary powers and don the role of the White Knight in this horribly corrupt India. As Anuj Bhuwania argues, the Court has increasingly become inscrutable in carrying out this role, rendering poorly reasoned judgments or not rendering judgments at all or governing by a stream of non-reasoned orders, to slowly become part of the problem itself. This recent history suggests that opening up the gates for litigation will only lead to more chaos. And there is more basis for worry in this particular sphere of judicial review of substantive criminal law issues. The last major opportunity the Court had to engage in this kind of analysis was when it was asked to decide the constitutionality of the defamation offence, but it failed to address core legal issues and hid behind a veil of prose, rendering that decision only fitfully useful in future cases. The consequences of judicial intervention in Joseph Shine – regardless of the verdict – are not going to be so unremarkable given its status as a Constitution Bench decision.

Conclusion 

Recently, my friend and fellow skeptic Gautam Bhatia in an op-ed laid out a rival approach to the “narrow approach” where the Court sticks to the legal issue to avoid the “real” ones. This is what he called the “transformative approach”, where the Court is fearless enough to “erase and remedy long-standing legacies of injustice”. I have reservations in how Bhatia imagines the Court should go about this task, but Bhatia is right in his underlying premise, that if the Court has already broken down the barriers in terms of traditional power-relations between the different branches of government in India, it might as well do something useful. What holds me back from cheering him on is that there is too much to show that the manner in which the Court carries out its core function of answering legal issues – if it still is the core function – makes a transformative approach a double-edged sword. By inviting the Court to widen its range of targets, litigants run a risk that the Court is not going to stick to the identified targets. It will pick and choose which ones it wants to address, how to address them, and whether it wants to bring in new targets which you only find out while reading the judgment. Thus, at heart I yearn for more principled criminalisation of conduct in India, something that the Constitution Bench decision in Joseph Shine can help realise. But history often repeats itself, and that history tells me that the kind of reasoned decision needed to help realise this objective is unlikely to emerge. As I was reminded seeing the recent England-India test match: it is the hope that kills you.