The Supreme Court’s interim order barring civil courts from hearing suits related to places of worship has reignited debate over the Places of Worship Act, 1991

A special bench of the Supreme Court led by CJI Sanjiv Khanna, on December 12, 2024, had barred all the civil courts from entertaining any fresh or pending suits related to the places of worship, in effect, validating the Act for an interim period, even before hearing the constitutional challenge to it.

The Places of Worship Act was enacted to serve as a legislative firewall against religious disputes over the places of worship. It seeks to bar conversion of places of worship and freezes their religious character as they existed on August 15, 1947, with an exception for the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.

Judicial Review and the Rule of Law

The abatement of suits and other legal proceedings in relation to the places of worship, as sought to be done through Parliament by a legislative fiat in 1991, goes contrary to the basic feature of the rule of law and judicial review as held in Indira Gandhi vs Raj Narain, among others. In India, and other parliamentary democracies, the view of the Parliament, served through its members, often portrayed as an eternal “will of the people,” free from all fetters, is misplaced: it is not only anathema to democratic and constitutional thoughts of our........

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