SC Hears Plea Challenging 1908 Dinshaw Ruling on Parsi Identity; Sr Adv Billimoria Calls It ‘Blatantly Discriminatory’

The Supreme Court of India on Tuesday heard a constitutional challenge raising questions about gender discrimination within the Parsi community, with Senior Advocate Percival Billimoria describing a 1908 Bombay High Court ruling governing Parsi identity as “a blot on the fair name of an otherwise industrious and loved community.”

A Bench of Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan was hearing a writ petition filed under Article 32 by a minor child through his mother, a Parsi-Zoroastrian woman married to a non-Parsi man.

The petition challenges the continued reliance on the 1908 decision in Dinshaw M. Petit v. Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, which has long been treated as determinative of “who is a Parsi.”

Opening his submissions, Sr. Adv. Billimoria stated that it was a matter of “great regret” to him and the two other Parsi lawyers assisting him that he had to speak in open court about what he described as the “soft underbelly” of the Parsi community. He submitted that the 1908 judgment was “blatantly discriminatory to women” and “downright racist,” and that its continued application in modern constitutional India was astonishing.

According to Sr. Adv. Billimoria, the distinction that has come to govern community practice is stark: children of a Parsi man married to a non-Parsi woman are treated as Parsis, whereas children of a Parsi woman married to a non-Parsi man are not. This asymmetry, he argued, is not grounded in theology but in racial lineage. While Zoroastrianism is a religion, he submitted, “Parsi” has been treated as a racial construct.

Referring to portions of the 1908 judgment, Sr. Adv. Billimoria pointed out that the High Court described inter-racial marriage as something that “dilutes and contaminates” the gene pool; “The last time something so absurd was given credence to, there was a holocaust,” he told the Court, cautioning against race-based reasoning. He further noted that the judgment used terminology and analogies which today would be impermissible, including language rooted in caste hierarchies, concepts that stand outlawed under modern constitutional and statutory frameworks. Yet, he said, the ruling continues to operate as a thumb rule to determine “who is a Parsi” in the present day.

The petition devotes considerable space to examining the colonial context in which the 1908 ruling was delivered.

It records that the Bombay High Court adopted what it describes as a “dual test” of religion (Zoroastrianism) and ethnicity (Parsi) to determine identity. 

The petition clarifies that it does not seek to unsettle the limited trust-law question addressed in 1908. Instead, the challenge concerns the extrapolation of that trust-law reasoning to regulate social and religious participation.

“The Petitioners’ fundamental rights are circumvented because they face social and religious ostracization owing solely to factors of lineage, ethnicity and race consequential to the fact that the Petitioner No 2 is married to a man considered to be a non-Parsi", the petition reads.

The petition invokes Articles 14, 15, 19, 21 and 25 of the Constitution. Among the reliefs sought are a declaration striking down the ruling in Petit v. Jeejeebhoy (1908) as bad law; a declaration that excommunicating Parsi Zoroastrian women for marrying non-Parsi men is unconstitutional and a declaration that children of Parsi women brought up in the Zoroastrian faith are not to be discriminated against solely because their father is not considered a Parsi

Throughout the submissions, Sr. Adv. Billimoria maintained that the issue before the Court is not theological but constitutional. The question, he suggested, is whether a colonial-era formulation rooted in racial and caste-based thinking can continue to operate in a constitutional democracy committed to equality and non-discrimination.

The matter is next listed for hearing on 07.04.2026.

For the petitioners: Sr. Adv. Percival Billimoria; Sr. Adv. Shyam Mehta; Mohit Paul (AOR); Firoza Daruwala; Jasmine Damkewala; Rangoli Seth; Rachita Sood; Priyamvada Paneru; Rahul Bhaskar; Rohit, Advs.

For the respondents: Sr. Adv. Shikhil Shiv Suri; Sr. Adv. Atul Chitale; Madhu Suri; Jyoti Suri, Wamika Chadha; HN Vakil; Farhad Vakil; Ishita Ahuja; Vibhor Choudhary; Divya Swami AOR; Madhav Chitale; Jayati Chitale; Suchitra Atul Chitale, AOR; Advs.

For the Union of India: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta; ASG K.M. Nataraj & Ors.

Case Title: Master Rian R. Kishnani & Anr. v. Union of India & Ors.

Order date: 10.02.2026

Bench: Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan