Why Muslims feel let down by Supreme Court

The Delhi and Chandigarh elite read the same newspapers Yet it were two judges of the Punjab and Haryana High Court G S Sandhawalia and H R Jeewan who took suo motu notice of media reports and halted the demolition spree at Nuh where establishments owned by Muslims were bulldozed to punish them for allegedly triggering the recent riots there The judges wondered whether the demolition was akin to ldquoethnic cleansingrdquoTheir intervention underscores ironically why Muslims feel let down by the Supreme CourtConsider this Former Rajya Sabha MP Mohd Adeeb petitioned the Supreme Court charging the Haryana chief secretary and the directorgeneral of police of being in contempt of the apex court The backdrop to Adeebrsquos petition was State inaction against Hindutva groups regularly disrupting the Friday prayers of Muslims in Gurugram The inaction was in violation of the Supreme Courtrsquos direction in the Tehseen Poonawalla case that the administration must preempt those who foment an atmosphere conducive for lynchingAdeebrsquos petition filed in January 2021 is yet to be heard Recently in Gurugram a mosque was burnt down and its naib imam killedNothing upset Muslims more than the 2019 Supreme Court judgment in the Ayodhya title suit The court said there was no evidence to show that the Babri Masjid was built after destroying a Hindu temple it said the mosque was built over a structure that likely fell into disuse 400 years before These observations established that Hindutvarsquos bloody campaign over Ayodhya was based on a lieYet the Supreme Court awarded the Babri Masjid site to its demolishers saying ldquothere is evidence on a preponderance of probabilities to establish worship by the Hindusrdquo before 1857 than there is for Muslims The court however granted five acres of land to Muslims in lieu of the Babri MasjidThe Ram Temple is due for inauguration next January The proposed mosque at Dhannipur where the five acres were allocated is still on paperThe Ayodhya judgment described the Places of Worship Act 1991 as a ldquolegislative instrument designed to protect the secular features of the Indian polityrdquo This Act freezes the religious character of all places of worship as it was on August 15 1947 It was this provision Muslims cited to challenge a civil court order allowing a survey of Varanasirsquos Gyanvapi mosqueBut the Supreme Court did not stop the survey with Justice D Y Chandrachud saying the Act does not bar the ldquoascertainment of the religious character of a place of worshiprdquo To what avail the ascertainment when the mosque cannot change handsThe survey will mount pressure on Muslims to relinquish their control of the Gyanvapi mosqueThe Union government in 2019 enacted a law prescribing three years of imprisonment to men who divorce their wives by pronouncing talaq three times at one go This form of divorce was outlawed in 2017Are nonMuslim men sent to prison for following an incorrect method of divorcing their wives The Supreme Court has yet to hear the petitions challenging the criminalisation of triple talaqThe Delhi High Court through a finely argued order gave bail to three of the student leaders booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act for allegedly sparking the 2020 Delhi riots The Supreme Court declared the order could not be cited as a precedent and that it had national implications requiring scrutiny But the scrutiny has yet to happen and bright Muslim youth leaders rot in jailThe Supreme Court delivered a split judgment on the Karnataka High Court upholding the state governmentrsquos order disallowing Muslim women to wear the hijab in classrooms The matter has to be now considered by a threemember bench which is yet to be constituted The ban on the hijab remains in forceThe Supreme Court has often gratuitously talked about having a uniform civil code which is the seasonrsquos flavour Below are two examplesIn the 1995 Sarla Mudgal case three women claimed they had been abandoned by their husbands who had converted to Islam and married Hindu women who too embraced Islam The court ruled that marriages under Hindu Personal Law subsist even after one of the spouses adopts another faith Although not pertinent to the case the judges wondered why a UCC had not been formulated when 82 per cent of Indians live under itIt is a falsehood that there is uniformity in Hindu Personal LawIn the 2015 Phulavati vs Prakash case the Supreme Court was asked to determine whether the 2005 amendment to the Hindu Succession Act 1955 could be applied retrospectively The amendment gave women a share equal to that of men in a joint family property The court said Phulavati cannot be given an equal share as the property dispute involving her predated 2005 The case had nothing to do with Muslims yet the judges critiqued the Muslim Personal Law mdashand asked that a public interest litigation regarding UCC be filedSuch bewildering activismFor all these reasons whenever the Supreme Court now hears a case involving the community rights of Muslims they think the verdict would go against them I leave it to the readers to write their conclusion to this pieceThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper