98. Ibid.
99. N.G. Jayal, Citizenship and its Discontents 148 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2013).
100. Bhatia, ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’, supra.
101. Parliament of India, Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII, supra, 19 November 1948 (speech of B.R. Ambedkar).
102. State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, supra, ¶64 (majority opinion of Justice Mathew).
103. LIC v. Manubhai D. Shah, 1992 (3) SCC 637, ¶7.
104. For a proto-version of this argument, see Raj Kumar Gupta, ‘Justice: Unequal but Inseparate’ (1969) 11(57) Journal of the Indian Law Institute 57, 83.
105. Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) Supp. (3) SCC 217, ¶843 (plurality opinion of Justice Jeevan Reddy).
106. The Court, however, limited the operation of the doctrine only to OBCs (Other Backward Classes), and made it clear that it would not apply to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The reasons are slightly different, and need to be briefly discussed (although the Court itself did not justify the proposition). Going all the way back to the debates in the 1920s, one of the important markers of the communities known as the Scheduled Castes was social stigma, or social opprobrium (which, in turn, operated to deny them access to public goods and opportunities). It is clear that social or educational ‘advancement’ is independent of social stigma, whose cause was exclusively group membership or group identity, something impossible for group members to ever shed. Secondly, the application of the creamy layer doctrine to the Scheduled Tribes would make even less sense, because, unlike castes, in case of the tribes, the Constitution is committed to preserving their autonomy and integrity as groups, as Schedules V and VI demonstrate. Singling out ‘advanced individuals’ within tribes would defeat that other, equally important, constitutional purpose.
107. R.K. Sabharwal v. State of Punjab (1995) 2 SCC 745.
108. In an illuminating essay, Vinay Sitapati (with whose account of the evolution of reservations jurisprudence I am in broad agreement in this chapter) argues that the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court post-Thomas has retreated from the ‘substantive equality’ articulation of the Equality Code, and ended up with a vague language of ‘balancing’. See Vinay Sitapati, ‘Reservations’ in The Oxford Handbook of the Indian Constitution, supra, 720, 741. Sitapati (ibid., 740) also argues that substantive equality is a normatively unsatisfactory approach to the Equality Code, with which, naturally, I disagree. My argument is that the Court’s retreat is a mistake, and a full-blooded jurisprudence of substantive equality, faithful to Thomas, is truest to the constitutional vision. For a similar view of Thomas, and an incisive criticism of the Court’s subsequent retreat in the context of prohibiting sub-classification within SCs, see K. Balagopal, ‘Justice for Dalits among Dalits: All the Ghosts Resurface’ (2005) 40(29) Economic and Political Weekly 3128.
109. Sukhnandan Thakur v. State of Bihar, supra.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid., ¶50 (dissenting opinion of CJ Das).
112. Jagdish Rai v. State of Punjab, AIR 1977 P&H 56.
113. Ibid., ¶10.
114. See Balagopal, ‘Justice for Dalits among Dalits’, supra.
115. Galanter, Competing Equalities, supra.
116. Interestingly, when this specific claim for inclusion in a government List of Backward Classes was raised by various groups before the High Court of Karnataka in a pre-N.M. Thomas case, S.A. Partha v. State of Mysore, AIR 1961 Kant 220, the Court rejected it on the grounds that it was essentially a plea to enforce the Directive Principles of State Policy. This logic, of course, was impeccable for its time, and precisely what (by implication) the Supreme Court rejected in N.M. Thomas.
117. This was also understood by Galanter, who expressed the fear that the core guarantee under 16(4) would be diluted by an uncontrollable multiplicity of claims. Galanter, Competing Equalities, supra, 391–95. Galanter’s fears cannot be dismissed out of hand, especially going by what has happened to Article 21 in the last three decades.
118. Galanter, Competing Equalities, supra.
119. Ajit Singh (II) v. State of Punjab, (1999) 7 SCC 209.
120. National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India, (2014) 5 SCC 438.
121. Ibid., ¶62.
122. Ibid., ¶135.3.
123. State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas, supra, ¶75 (majority opinion of Justice Mathew): ‘Equality of result is the test of equality of opportunity.’
124. As Sandra Fredman puts the point, in slightly different language: ‘Under-representation of [target groups] is a sign that there might be a hidden obstacle to entry, which, unless justifiable, should be removed.’ Fredman, Discrimination Law, supra, 181.
125. Ibid., 134.
126. See, e.g., Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971) (Supreme Court of the United States).
127. British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v. BCGSEU (1999) 3 S.C.R. 3 (Supreme Court of Canada).
4: Civil Rights: Indian Medical Association and Horizontal Discrimination
1. Press Trust of India, ‘Govt to Set Up Equal Opportunities Commission for Minorities’, The Times of India (20 February 2014) and The Hindu (20 February 2014); Express News Service, ‘Cabinet Clears Equal Opportunities Panel’, The Indian Express (21 February 2014).
2. See, e.g., United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; the United Kingdom Equality and Human Rights Commission.
3. Prime Minister’s High Level Committee, Social, Educational and Economic Status of the Muslim Community of India: A Report (New Delhi: Ministry of Human Resource Development, 2006), available at http://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload_files/mhrd/files/sachar_comm.pdf.
4. Erwin Chemerinsky, ‘Rethinking State Action’ (1985) 80(3) Northwestern University Law Review 503, 536.
5. Smruti Koppikar, ‘How bias against Muslim flat seekers came to be entrenched in India’s most cosmopolitan city’, Scroll (28 May 2015), available at http://scroll.in/article/730409/how-bias-against-muslim-flat-seekers-came-to-be-entrenched-in-indias-most-cosmopolitan-city.
6. Gujarat Disturbed Areas Act, 1991. For a discussion, see infra.
7. In India, housing societies set rules, formal and informal, for the use and transfer of flats, apartment complexes, or sets of residential buildings.
8. See, generally, Richard R.W. Brooks and Carol M. Rose, Saving the Neighbourhood: Racially Restrictive Covenants, Law, and Social Norms (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2013).
9. As we shall see below, cases dealing with restrictive covenants have involved blacks in the US and South Africa, and Jews in Canada and the United Kingdom.
10. Stephen Gardbaum, ‘“The Horizontal Effect” of Constitutional Rights’ (2003) 102(3) The Michigan Law Review 387, 417.
11. Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948).
12. Ibid., 13.
13. Under the US Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the Constitution binds State courts., Constitution of the United States, art VI. §1, Cl. 2.
14. Shelley v. Kraemer, supra, 19.
15. See, e.g., Duncan Kennedy, ‘The Stages of Decline of the Public/Private Distinction’ (1982) 130 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1349, 1352.
16. Laurence Tribe, Constitutional Choices 259–260 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1985).
17. Re Drummond Wren (1945) O.R. 778 (Ont. HC).
18. Ibid., ¶ 20.
19. Ibid., ¶ 30.
20. Ibid., ¶ 31.
21. Noble v. Alley, [1951] S.C.R. 64.
22. Ibid., at 70, following Clayton v. Ramsden, [1943] 1 All E.R. 16.
23. Curators v. The University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, 2011 (1) BCLR 40 (SCA).
24. Ibid., ¶ 35.
25. Ibid., ¶ 36.
26. Ibid., ¶ 38.
27. See Ralf Brinktine, ‘The Horizontal Effect of Human Rights in German Constitutional Law’ (2001) European Human Rights Law Review 421. See the famous Luth case: BVerfGE 7, 198.
28. Curators, supra, ¶38.
30. See, infra, Section II.
31. R. Rajagopal v. State of Tamil Nadu, (1994) 6 SCC 632.
32. Zoroastrian Cooperative Housing Society Limited v. District Registrar Cooperative Societies (Urban), (2005) 5 SCC 632.
33. Zoroastrian Cooperative, supra, ¶9.
34. Ibid., ¶10.
35. Ibid., ¶13.
36. Indian Contract Act 1872, §23.
37. See the observations in Sargunam Ammal v. Jayarama Padayachi (1994) 1 LW 139, following Gobindaswami Dasi v. Radha Ballabha Dasi (1910) 15 C.M.N. 205.
38. Held as early as Bani Muncharam v. Regina Stanger, I.L.R. 32 Bom. 581. The citation of these cases is not meant to be an endorsement of their reasoning.
39. Delhi Transport Corporation v. DTC Mazdoor Congress, AIR 1991 SC 101.
40. Zoroastrian Cooperative, supra, ¶15.
41. Ibid., ¶19.
42. Ibid., ¶33.
43. Ibid., ¶29.
44. These limits are restricted to the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, and morality.
45. See, e.g., Parliament of India, The Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. II (Wednesday, 22 January 1947), available at http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/debates/vol2p3.htm.
46. See, e.g., NAACP v. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958).
47. See, e.g., State of Madras v. V.G. Row, AIR 1952 SC 196.
48. Zoroastrian Cooperative, supra, ¶29.
49. Ibid., ¶33.
50. Parliament of India, Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII (8 December 1948), available at http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/constituent/vol7p22.html.
51. Ibid.
52. See, e.g., Ahmedabad St Xavier’s College v. State of Gujarat, AIR 1974 SC 1389.
53. See Will Kymlicka, ‘The Rights of Minority Cultures: Reply to Kukathas’ (1992) 20(1) Political Theory 140.
54. Samatha v. State of Andhra Pradesh (1997) 8 SCC 191, ¶12.
55. Indian Medical Association v. Union of India (2011) 7 SCC 179.
56. Ibid., ¶113.
57. All these definitions may be found in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shop.
58. I thank Krishnaprasad K.V. for pushing me to ensure greater clarity on this point.
59. Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000); Gould v. Yukon Order of Pioneers (1996) 1 S.C.R. 571.
60. See Tarunabh Khaitan, A Theory of Discrimination Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2015).
61. Ibid.
62. Parliament of India, Constituent Assembly Debates: Vol. VII (29 November 1948), supra.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Parliament of India, Constituent Assembly Debates: Vol. XI (22 November 1949), available at http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/constituent/vol11p8.pdf.
68. Clause 4, Report of the Sub-Committee on Fundamental Rights, 16 April 1947, in B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of India’s Constitution, Vol. II 169, 171 (New Delhi: Universal Law Publishing 2015).
69. Minutes of the Sub-Committee on Minorities, 18 April 1947, in ibid., 203-04.
70. Proceedings of the Advisory Committee, 21–22 April 1947, in ibid., 210, 221. Now Article 30 of the Constitution.
71. This schema was originally proposed by Habermas. See Nancy Fraser, ‘What’s Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender’ (1985) 35 New German Critique 97, 112.
72. See, e.g., Seyla Benhabib, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (New York: Routledge 1992).
73. See, e.g., Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1660), available at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html; Jean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth (M.J. Tooley trans., Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1955), available at http://www.constitution.org/bodin/bodin.htm. Jacques Maritain, ‘The Concept of Sovereignty’ (June 1950) 44(2) The American Political Science Review 343, 345–46.
74. See, e.g., Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1969).
75. Sudipta Kaviraj, Trajectories of the Indian State: Politics and Ideas (Ranikhet: Permanent Black 2010).
76. Ibid.
77. Tanika Sarkar, ‘A Prehistory of Rights: The Age of Consent Debate in Colonial Bengal’ (2000) 26(3) Feminist Studies 601, 606; see also Tanika Sarkar, ‘Something Like Rights? Faith, Law and Widow Immolation Debates in Colonial Bengal’ (2012) 49 Indian Economic and Social History Review 295.
78. ‘The Constitution of India Bill, 1895’, cf. B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of India’s Constitution: Select Documents, Vol. I, supra, 5; ‘Congress Resolution on Self-Determination’, 1918, cf. ibid., 31; ‘The Nehru Report’, 1928, cf. ibid., 58.
79. Vidhu Verma, ‘Colonialism and Liberation: Ambedkar’s Quest for Distributive Justice’, (1999) 34(39) Economic and Political Weekly 2804, 2806. For Gandhi’s role, see Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World, 1914–1948 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2018).
80. Eleanor Zelliott, Ambedkar’s World 14 (New Delhi: Navayana 2012).
81. Ibid., 60. This was recognized by Gandhi, who actively campaigned against school segregation on caste lines. See, e.g., Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi, supra.
82. Interestingly, one of the recommendations of the Starte Committee was the enforcement of ‘polite treatment’ of Depressed Classes by government officials. This anticipated one of the key slogans of the US civil rights movement, three decades later: ‘A man has the right not to be humiliated in front of his son.’ For an account of spatial and social segregation, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Religious Rebels in the Punjab: The Ad Dharm Challenge to Caste 143 (New Delhi: Navayana 2009).
83. Ibid., 76.
84. Zelliott, supra.
85. Ibid.
86. See, e.g., Mrinalini Sinha, Specters of Mother India: The Global Restructuring of an Empire (Durham: Duke University Press 2006).
87. B.R. Ambedkar, ‘Ambedkar’s Memorandum’ in Shiva Rao, The Framing of India’s Constitution, Vol. 2, supra, 84, 105.
88. Ibid., 106.
89. Gail Omvedt, Seeking Begumpura (New Delhi: Navayana 2009).
90. The full name is: The Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provision for Protection of Tenants from Premises in Disturbed Areas Act, 1991.
91. It hardly needs to be said that separate is not equal, especially in a majoritarian context. For more background, see Nidhi Tambi, ‘It’s High Time the Gujarat Government Recognises the Communal Elephant in the Room’, The Wire, 1 March 2018, available at https://thewire.in/communalism/its-high-time-gujarat-government-recognises-the-communal-elephant-in-the-room.
5: Religious Freedom and Group Identity: Saifuddin and the Anti-Exclusion Principle
1. Dr Noorjehan Safia Niaz v. State of Maharashtra (2016) 5 AIR Bom R 660. For an analysis, see Gautam Bhatia, ‘Haji Ali Dargah: Bombay High Court Upholds Women’s Right to Access the Inner Sanctum’, available at https://indconlawphil.wordpress.com/2016/08/26/haji-ali-dargah-bombay-high-court-upholds-womens-right-to-access-the-inner-sanctum/.
2. PTI, ‘Supreme Court starts hearing on women’s entry into Sabarimala temple’, The Hindustan Times, 17 July 2018, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/supreme-court-starts-hearing-on-women-s-entry-into-sabarimala-temple/story-CHSUfVlSLsnFZNEBEASG6N.html.
3. Sardar Syedna Tahir Saifuddin v. State of Bombay, 1962 SCR Supl. (2) 496.
4. Ibid., ¶61 (concurring opinion of Justice Ayyangar).
5. Ibid., ¶19 (dissenting opinion of CJ Sinha).
6. Ibid., ¶23 (dissenting opinion of CJ Sinha).
7. See, e.g., Rajeev Dhavan and Fali Nariman, ‘The Supreme Court and Group Life’ in Supreme But Not Infallible: Essays in Honour of the Supreme Court of India 256–87 (B.N. Kirpal et al. eds., New Delhi: OUP 2000); B.P. Rao, ‘Matters of Religion’ (1963) 5 Journal of the Indian Law Institute 509; Marc Galant
er, ‘Hinduism, Secularism, and the Indian Judiciary’ (1971) 21(4) Philosophy East and West 467.
8. See, e.g., First Amendment, Constitution of the United States of America; Section 15, Constitution of South Africa.
9. A point made by Rao, ‘Matters of Religion’, supra; D.E. Smith, ‘India as a Secular State’, in Secularism and Its Critics 177 (Rajeev Bhargava ed., OUP, New Delhi, 1998).
10. Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph, In Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State 33 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1987).
11. Marc Galanter, ‘The Religious Aspects of Caste: A Legal View’ in South Asian Politics and Religion 289 (D. Smith ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press 1966).
12. Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (Oxford: OUP 1996), Ch. 3.
13. See, e.g., Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 US 171 (2012) (US Supreme Court). For a summary of the opposing views, see Rajeev Bhargava, ‘Introducing Multiculturalism’ in Multiculturalism, Liberalism, and Democracy 1 (R. Bhargava et al. eds., New Delhi: OUP 2007) 1.
14. Saifuddin, supra, ¶33.
15. See, e.g., Suhrith Parthasarathy, ‘The Flawed Reasoning in the Santhara Ban’, The Hindu, 24 August 2015.
16. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 275 (1972) (US Supreme Court).
17. Multani v. Commissioner (2006) 1 SCR 256 (Supreme Court of Canada).
18. Leyla Sahin v. Turkey (2007) 44 EHRR 5 (Grand Chamber) (European Court of Human Rights).
19. But see MEC for Education v. Pillay (2008) 2 BCLR 99 (CC) (South African Constitutional Court); R(E) v. Governing Body of JFS (2009) UKSC 15 (United Kingdom Supreme Court). Note, however, that the JFS case was decided under the UK Race Relations Act, which specifically prohibited discrimination and exclusion in certain aspects of the private sphere. The argument in this chapter will deal with how the Indian Constitution speaks to such issues.
20. Gary Jacobsohn, The Wheel of Law: India’s Secularism in Comparative Constitutional Context 102 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2003).
21. Parliament of India, Constituent Assembly Debates, Vol. VII, 2 December 1948 (speech of Dr B.R. Ambedkar), available at http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/constituent/vol7p18.html.
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