The counsel for the petitioners in the hijab ban row on Monday told the Supreme Court the Karnataka high court did an "objectionable" thing when it tried to "interpret" the Holy Quran and held the headscarf worn by Muslim women was not an essential religious practice.
The SC is dealing with legal and constitutional issues relating to discrimination against women in various religions and at religious places including Kerala's Sabarimala Temple.
The mere fact that some part of administration of an educational institution is also looked after by non-minority officials does not "dilute" its minority character, the Supreme Court observed on Wednesday while hearing the hugely disputed minority status of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).
The application has been filed to oppose a batch of petitions on which the apex court had in 2018 issued notices to the Centre and other stakeholders while referring the matter to a 5-judge Constitution bench.
Hours after Desai said that the draft is ready to be submitted to the state government, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the Uniform Civil Code will soon be implemented in Uttarakhand.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra framed several questions to be dealt with by the Constitution Bench, including whether the temple can restrict women's entry.
This was also part of the right to privacy of the deity, the lawyer said.
'... dividing society not just on religious lines, but also creating rift in families and among brothers and sisters.'
The court will consider issues related to entry of Muslim women into mosques, female genital mutilation in the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community and barring of Parsi women, married to non-Parsi men, from the holy fire place at Agiary.
The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has moved the Supreme Court challenging the Karnataka high court verdict which had dismissed petitions seeking permission to wear the hijab inside the classroom saying hijab is not a part of the essential religious practice in the Islamic faith.
For India to view the new Sri Lankan leadership only through the prism of the past or through their narrow view on China, is fraught with possibilities that should be avoided, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
A nine-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde at the outset said that it will only deal with the issues referred to it by a five-judge bench on November 14 in the Sabarimala case, and asked the lawyers to convene a meeting on January 17 to decide on 're-framing' or adding additional issues to be deliberated upon by it.
The Rs 2,000 note withdrawal decision and response to it so far suggest that the move can help boost FY24 GDP growth to beyond 6.5 per cent estimated by the RBI, a report said on Monday. The real GDP growth for the first quarter of FY24 will come at 8.1 per cent with an upward bias and the Reserve Bank of India's 6.5 per cent estimate can also be exceeded, economists at the country's largest lender SBI said. "We expect Q1 FY24 GDP growth at 8.1 per cent with an upward bias due to the impact of Rs 2000 note withdrawal event...this reinforces our projection that FY24 GDP could be higher than 6.5 per cent, basis the RBI estimate," a note said.
The Centre had, in an affidavit filed in the apex court earlier, said it had issued a letter on April 18 to all states inviting comments and views on the "seminal issue" raised in these petitions.
'We will talk to Muslim, Christian organisations and form a broad alliance so that every temple, church and mosque will have freedom to manage their affairs and not to be intervened upon.'
The Enforcement Directorate is carrying out searches at 11 locations across India, including the Nagpur office of the Church of North India (CNI), in connection with a case registered in Bhopal, an ED official said on Wednesday.
India had been striving for long to get a UNESCO tag for this cultural site located in Birbhum district.
Citizens belonging to different religions and denominations follow different property and matrimonial laws which is 'an affront to the nation's unity', the Centre had said last year in its affidavit in the Supreme Court on the Uniform Civil Code matter.
The Supreme Court on Friday referred the issue of the practice of excommunication in the Dawoodi Bohra community to a larger nine-judge bench.
This election will be remembered for being the first election where the Election Commission failed to take action on gross violations involving the ruling party that repeatedly used religion, communal slurs, lies and undocumented allegations, observes Ramesh Menon.
The apex court said banning entry of women to Kerala's Sabrimala temple is gender discrimination and the practice violates rights of Hindu women.
A majority verdict by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices A M Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra decided to keep pending the pleas seeking a review of its decision regarding the entry of women into the shrine, and said restrictions on women in religious places was not restricted to Sabarimala alone and was prevalent in other religions as well.
In nearly 100 seats, the BJP stands almost no chance of winning. In 200 seats, it is a direct fight between the BJP and the Congress where the BJP has an upper hand. In 243 seats, the BJP is pitted against regional parties and it is not going to be easy. That is why 400 seats may end up as a pipe dream, states Ramesh Menon, author of Modi Demystified: The Making of a Prime Minister.
Introducing UCC is a challenging task for any government. The complexities are real and difficult to negotiate as it deals with sensitive religious and cultural sentiments. How can it strike an easy balance between individual rights and community interests?, asks Ramesh Menon.
On Monday, the Supreme Court directed that the famous Nataraja temple in the town of Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu will be managed by priests and not by the state government.
Samjawadi Party leader Kamaal Farooqi on Friday kicked up a controversy over the arrest of Indian Mujahideen co-founder Yasin Bhatkal, asking whether it is based on the grounds of crime or religion.
The 21st Law Commission said the special status given to the entity of HUF was a 'so-called gift by the British', who could not comprehend the complex socioeconomic structure of Indian families. 'Now, this status is being used for the evasion of tax only,' it said.
The court accepted the scheme formulated by the state government to provide "ex gratia assistance" of up to Rs 50,000 to all religious places, including mosques and temples.
The central government has told the Delhi High Court that citizens from different religions and denominations following different property and matrimonial laws is an affront to the nation's unity and the Uniform Civil Code will result in the integration of India.
'The challenges of the world are too great for any one religious tradition to address alone... The best way to learn about other religions is not from books, but from people... Go talk to someone from a different faith tradition. Get to know them. Build up some trust.' Dr Katharine Rhodes Henderson, who jointly won Hofstra University's Guru Nanak Prize for inter-faith champions in the United States, discusses religion and the challenges of extremism in this lively interview with Rediff.com's Arthur J Pais.
It is a tribute to a system so robustly meritocratic that this team represents India's diversity better than any other institution: The Union Cabinet, our chief ministers, the civil services, the leadership of our armed forces and security agencies, the judiciary and more than all of these, our typical newsroom. That is the biggest message from this breathless rise of Indian cricket, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
In constitutional democracies the Opposition is legitimate and part of the legislature. To see it as the enemy and to try and get rid of it through convictions and expulsions is not democratic, asserts Aakar Patel.
'Kerala voters vote from their mind rather than their heart.'
A five judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was apparently not in agreement with the argument of the Travancore Devaswom Board running the over 800-year-old Lord Ayyappa temple that the "practice and belief" that have continued uninterrupted cannot be tested on the ground of "modern ethos".
'Whom do I want to marry and what decisions I make for marrying the person I love are totally personal decisions, in which neither the State nor the courts have any right to interfere.'
The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its verdict on whether to refer the matters pertaining to the ban on entry of women aged between 10 to 50 years at Kerala's Sabrimala temple to its constitution bench.
The state govt said that celibate status of deity cannot be a ground for barring entry of women.
The statement comes in the midst of countrywide protests against the new citizenship law.
'It was a 20-minute boat ride journey of about 500 metres, but it must have been a giant leap together for the two staunchly secular leaders, Modi and Macron,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The top court said there are serious infirmities in the oral accounts of Nirmohi witnesses that the disputed structure was not a mosque but the Janmabhoomi temple.