NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday sought to know from a petitioner if it can direct the legislature to make religion and gender-neutral laws on subjects like marriageable age, divorce, adoption, succession, inheritance and alimony.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justices P S Narasimha and J B Pardiwala was hearing a petition seeking a direction to the government for enacting uniform religion and gender-neutral laws on a wide variety of issues.
"This falls in the legislative domain. Mr Upadhyay, please respond to this issue that it is for legislative intervention and it is for the parliament to do this. Take this as a preliminary issue and address us," the bench observed.
Advocate petitioner Ashwini Upadhyay has filed five separate petitions seeking direction from the Centre to frame religion and gender-neutral uniform laws for divorce, adoption, guardianship, succession, inheritance, maintenance, marriage age, and alimony.
Upadhyay, in August 2020, filed a PIL seeking "uniform grounds of divorce" for all citizens, in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution and international conventions.
He filed another PIL through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey seeking "gender and religion-neutral" uniform grounds of maintenance and alimony for all citizens in line with the spirit of the Constitution and international conventions.
In another PIL, he sought the removal of anomalies in laws governing adoption and guardianship and to make them uniform for all citizens. He also filed a petition seeking the removal of anomalies in succession and inheritance laws and making them uniform for all.