Keywords: PIL, Article 32, Constitution, Petitioner
The Supreme Court, on Tuesday, 4th July 2023, refused to entertain a PIL challenging the use of male pronouns in the Constitution of India. The bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice P.S. Narsimha expressed its displeasure at the frivolous petition and criticized the petitioner for wasting its time.
The Public Interest Litigation was filed by a law student, Harsh Gupta, under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution. He claimed that the usage of male terminologies such as ‘Chairman’ in the Indian Constitution violates Article 14 i.e. Right to Equality.
The Court stated that the term ‘Chairman’, instead of Chairperson doesn’t stop a woman from acquiring the esteemed post. Moreover, the constitutional provisions cannot be stuck down for this reason.
The Bench went on to further say that the petitioner should focus on studying rather than filing such petitions that waste the time of the court. Expressing its frustration, the Bench warned that if this continues, the court will have to start imposing costs on the petitioners.
In another set of PILs filed by an advocate seeking to reclassify the caste system and phase out the reservation system to replace it by some alternate mode, the Bench dismissed both the PILs while imposing costs of ₹25,000 each.
However in this case, since the petitioner was merely a student, the Court advised him to focus on studies, and dismissed the petition.
Name: Archita Garg, College Name: School of Law, Christ University, Bangalore Semester: I An intern under Legal Vidhiya
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