The Quran Case and powers of Judicial Review

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  The Quran Case and powers of Judicial Review

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• The story: A public interest litigation was filed in the Supreme Court by Wasim Rizvi seeking declaration of 26 verses of the Quran as unconstitutional, non-effective and non-functional. It is interesting to observe the limits of judicial review in this regard.
• Scope of petition: The petitioner has made the demand on the ground that those 26 verses of the Quran promote extremism and terrorism. It is also said to pose a serious threat to the sovereignty, unity and integrity of the country. Naturally, the petition led to protests among a section of Muslims, and several clerics have issued fatwas against the petitioner. In 'Vishwa Lochan Madan (2014)' case, the Supreme Court has already observed that such fatwas have no validity. Shia clerics have excommunicated Rizvi from the fold of Shias.
• Legal incongruities in petition: Mr. Rizvi had named three secretaries of the Centre and also 56 private persons as respondents. In purely legal terms, the writ jurisdiction lies against the “state.” But the persons named as respondents are certainly not ‘state’ within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution. Ideally he should have made Muslim God, Allah, as respondent number one as Muslims believe him to be the sole author of the Quran. Under Indian law, idols are juristic persons and recently Ram Lalla won the historic Babri Masjid case. The petition also claims the Quran promotes terrorism and therefore these 26 verses must be removed. There are a number of laws such as the IPC, UAPA, TADA, POTA, etc that already prohibit and severely punish terror activities. No terrorist can certainly defend himself by relying on his religious texts as the law of the land.
• Court's jurisdiction: Under Indian law, only a “law” can be challenged as unconstitutional. 

1. Article 13(3) defines law, which includes any ordinance, order, by-law, rule, regulations, notification, custom or usage having in the territory the force of law. 
2. “Laws in force” on the commencement of the Constitution include laws enacted by a legislature or other competent authority. This definition certainly does not cover any religious scripture including the Quran.
3. Similarly, neither the Vedas nor the Gita, nor the Bible, nor the Guru Granth Sahib can be said to be “law” under Article 13.
4. To term the Quran or other religious scriptures as custom or usage, as this petition claims, is also absurd. Customs and usage are repeated practices of human beings. Words of divine characters cannot be considered as customs. The divine books can be sources of law but not law in themselves.

• Summary: Thus Quran in itself is not “law” for the purposes of Article 13. The Quran itself abrogated several shameful customs of Arabs such as female infanticide, and therefore the Quran can never be called custom as well. If Quran is not law, it is not subject to judicial review. No court can sit in judgment on any sacred book.

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