Samajwadi Party MLA Rais Shiekh Moves Bombay HC Challenging Constitution of Inter-Faith Marriage Committee
The plea filed by Samajwadi Party MLA challenges a government resolution and states that it is violative of Articles 14, 15, 21, and 25
Rais Shiekh who is Member of the Legislative Assembly from the Samajwadi Party has filed a plea before the Bombay High Court challenging the government resolution which provides to set up an Interfaith Family Coordination Committee in the State of Maharashtra.
The plea states that the committee formed through the government resolution is empowered to collect information on individuals who have done inter-caste marriages from religious institutions, the registration department, and the stamp duty department which is violative of the right to privacy.
The petition, therefore, states that such a committee is in contravention and violative of Article 14 (right to equality), Article 15 (forbidding discrimination), 21 (right to life which includes the right to privacy), and 25 (right to freedom of religion) of the constitution of India amongst other articles.
The MLA has further submitted in his plea that such government resolution consigns women to a second-class status depending on who they marry.
“The government resolution is subversive of the principle of equality, guaranteed under Article 14 of the constitution of India. The resolution not only essentially consigns women to second-class status depending on who they marry, but also puts their life, limb, privacy and liberty at peril, contrary to the constitutional mandate of Article 21 merely because they chose and exercised their right to choose their life partner outside their caste and/or faith. The right of women cannot be stripped merely because they choose something which departs from what is deemed “normal” by her parents or the patriarchal society,” the plea reads.
The plea further states that the government resolution cites the Shradha Walker Murder Case for setting up a such committee, but the state failed to clarify if they will track inter-faith live-in relationships.
“That even as the state government cites a brutal murder as the basis for its resolution, it failed to clarify whether the “tracking” as envisaged will also include inter-faith live-in relationships. If that is the case, the extent of intrusion into the personal lives of individuals by the State will have no checks and bounds and would be unlimited and a harassment to such couples,” the plea states.
Case Title: Rais Shaikh vs State of Maharashtra