Parliament Exercises Sovereign Power to Enact Laws, No Outside Authority Can Dictate, Centre Tells SC

Parliament exercises sovereign right to frame laws and no outside authority can issue it a direction to enact a law, the Union government has told the Supreme Court in an affidavit. The submission was made in response to the petitions filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay seeking a direction to the central government to frame religion and gender-neutral uniform laws for divorce, adoption, guardianship, succession, inheritance, maintenance, marriage age, and alimony.

“It is a settled position of law and has been held in the catena of judgments that under our constitutional scheme, Parliament exercises sovereign power to enact laws and no outside power or authority can issue a direction to enact a particular piece of legislation.

“It is respectfully submitted that a writ of Mandamus (a judicial remedy in the form of an order by a court to any government or subordinate courts) cannot be issued to the legislature to enact a particular legislation. “This is a matter of policy for the elected representatives of the people to decide and no direction in this regard can be issued by the Court. It is for the legislature to enact or not to enact a piece of legislation. Further, in the catena of judgments it has been held that Public Interest Litigation should not be filed merely on the basis of news paper reports,” the Centre said in an affidavit filed last week.

The top court had earlier sought a comprehensive response from the Centre on a batch of petitions seeking a direction to the government to frame religion and gender-neutral uniform laws for civil matters like divorce, adoption, guardianship, succession, inheritance, maintenance, marriage age, and alimony.

Upadhyay has filed five separate petitions through advocate Ashwani Kumar Dubey, seeking such laws. Upadhyay had, in August 2020, filed the PIL seeking “uniform grounds of divorce” for all citizens, in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution and international conventions.

He had filed another PIL seeking “gender and religion-neutral” uniform grounds of maintenance and alimony for all citizens in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution and international conventions.

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