Societal fault lines deeply rooted, says SC judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan citing caste & religious discrimination

Hyderabad: Supreme Court judge Justice Ujjal Bhuyan said that while constitutional courts continue to advocate for constitutional morality, the reality suggests that societal fault lines are deeply rooted even after 75 years of independence.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Telangana Judges Association and the Telangana State Judicial Academy in Hyderabad on the theme Constitutional Morality and Role of District Judiciary on Saturday, he shared an example of how his daughter's friend was denied accommodation because of her religious identity. He also shared another example how the parents refused to send their children to government schools because a Dalit woman cooked the mid-day meal.

"My daughter's friend is doing her PhD programme in a private university at Noida. So, she was looking for an accommodation. She approached a landlady who was running a working women's hostel in her building in South Delhi. The landlady asked her name. When she told her name, the landlady asked her about her surname. When she revealed her Muslim identity by mentioning her surname, the landlady told her quite bluntly that accommodation was not available and that she could search for some other place," said Justice Bhuyan.

Explaining the concept of constitutional morality, Justice Bhuyan said that it is a benchmark which the Constitution expects everyone to adhere to.

“But the morality we practice at home or at the community level is often at variance with what the Constitution expects us to practice,” he said.

Another example he mentioned was from Odisha. "The government was having a programme of mid-day meal in schools which has encouraged students particularly in the rural areas to go to school and avail basic education. In this context, the government has employed several women, mostly from anganwadi centres, for cooking the mid-day meal. A hue and cry was raised by some of the parents, that too quite aggressively, that their children would not consume food prepared by dalit women," said Justice Bhuyan.

He added that these examples show "just the tip of the iceberg revealing how deep the societal fault lines are." "In fact, this is a mirror to us showing how distant we still are from the benchmark of constitutional morality even after 75 years into our republic," he said.

He also added that the nation must be governed by the rule of law and not by the rule of the people. “Constitutional morality means that the nation is governed by the rule of law and not by the rule of the people,” he said.

Referring to the Delhi High Court’s decision in Naz Foundation Vs. Union of India and its endorsement by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in Navtej Singh Johar, he said, “In our scheme of things, constitutional morality must outweigh the argument of public morality, even if it be the majoritarian view. For a constitutional court, it is the constitutionality of the issue before it which is relevant and not the dominant or popular view,” he said.