Equality: Legislative Review under Article 14 (original) (raw)

Gender and Anti-Discrimination Laws in India

The Empire of Disgust

The Constitution of India guarantees not only formal equality but also promises that entrenched power structures will gradually dissolve. However, forms of discrimination faced by women are not just a feature of our social fabric but are supported by the ambiguities of the legal-juridical framework that reinforce unjust gender norms. The persistence of gender discrimination as it exists in the wider societal sphere is expressed by the unevenness that marks women’s access to the legal system. The chapter reviews the contestations, the changing categories, and terms of feminist analysis in law. It turns to address the problem of equal rights in understanding the protection against vulnerability, and various forms the loss of liberty takes in different contexts of marginality about gender discrimination. In what follows, I begin by presenting some methodological concerns. Then I discuss the Indian jurisprudence on sexual harassment and assault. I then focus briefly on the right to temp...

Constitutional Provisions for the Protection of Gender Inequality in India

International Journal of Research, 2019

The aim of the present paper is to present the picture of gender inequality in India. Being the second largest democracy of the world India is very complex and diversified, and it is present in many ways, many fields and many sections of the society. The opportunities in the field likeeducation, political, social, economical, religious, employment etc. where men are always preferred over women. The second issue in the paper is discussing about the various practices that resulted in a wide gap between the position of men and women in the country. In India, a woman still needs the richer of a husband and a family. Their dominating nature has led women to walk with their head down. It was all practiced from the beginning and is followed till date. Consider the woman's reservation case in parliament. The opposing party believes that women are born to do household work and manage kids, and not to corrupt the country by taking hold over politics. What the society need today are trends where girls are able not only to break out of the culturally determined patterns of employment but also to offer advice about career possibilities that look beyond the traditional pail of jobs. It is surprising that in spite of so man laws, women still have miles to go. Thus, it is rightly said-Man and Woman are like two wheels of a carriage. The life of one without the other is incomplete.

TOWARDS GENDER JUSTICE - UNDERSTANDING EQUALITY IN THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

This paper explains the concept of equality in the Constitution of India that would be useful to further the cause of gender justice, with illustrations of how the same has been expounded in Judgements by the Courts in India. It focuses on the need to highlight the context of time and space and social, economic and political conditions in any strategy for gender equality and justice and argues that the concept of equality in the Constitution is a dynamic concept still waiting to explode and find its presence in many areas of life in India.

Tools of Justice: Non-discrimination and the Indian Constitution

2012

It ushered in universal adult suffrage and a judicially enforced bill of rights to a population that was marked by stark inequalities of caste, gender, religion, and class. The constitutional values were not part of the lived experience of most of the people. The liberal republican document perched uneasily upon an administrative structure-the police, the judiciary, the bureaucracy, and the army-that retained both the practices and personnel of the colonial state. The activist and the relatively autonomous Supreme Court reflects this tension through its dramatically divergent readings of the constitution, for instance, recognizing the rights of transgendered people while upholding colonial legislation criminalizing sodomy. Kalpana Kannabiran lays out a radically new approach to constitutional interpretation by making nondiscrimination the central organizing concept. Arguing that the fundamental rights cannot be disaggregated, she demonstrates how Article 21 (guaranteeing life and liberty), Article 14 (guaranteeing equality before law), and Article 19 (listing the freedoms of expression, association, and movement) are intrinsically connected to Article 15 which prohibits the discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth. In doing so, she seeks to "sustain and develop" the creative articulations of constitutional morality and limit the possibility of reductionist readings of rights. This is a strategic move as Indian courts have been receptive to intertextual readings centering on Article 21, the right to personal life and liberty. In 1978, the Supreme Court had imported the requirement of due process into any law that limited the right to life and personal liberty holding that "no fundamental right is an island in itself " (Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India, 1978). The Supreme Court has also successfully amplified the right to life and liberty bs_bs_banner 687

Constitutionalizing Women’s Equality in India: Assessing the Sabarimala Decision

Columbia Journal of Gender and Law

In 2018, in Indian Young Lawyers Association (IYLA) v State of Kerala, popularly known as the Sabarimala case, the Indian Supreme Court struck down a rule that prevented girls and women in the 10-50 age group from entering the Sabarimala temple in Kerala. The Court, in a 4-1 decision, held that the temple rule violated women’s right to equality and right to worship and was not protected under the right to religious freedom. Sabarimala is a landmark decision. For the first time,the Court insisted that all discrimination must be tested against constitutional values and discrimination that perpetuates stereotypes and disadvantage will not withstand constitutional scrutiny. It emphasised the importance of substantive equality in contesting discrimination against women and challenging the structures of oppression that exclude women. Finally, the Court linked women’s equality rights with equal citizenship. Focusing on the Sabarimala decision, this paper evaluates the recognition of women’...

Social justice and untouchability in India: A constitutional perspective

Untouchability is an ignoble feature of Indian society. On the one hand, it symbolizes inequality; and on the other hand, it is violative of the principle of human dignity. Every human being is born free and equal. No human dictat can cause a schism on the basis of such concepts like untouchability between two human beings. Although many social reformers tried their hand to reform the social traditions, yet legal reforms could be taken after the independence when we got a new Constitution of free India. Article 17 of the Constitution specifically deals with untouchability. Our Supreme Court in her various judgments clarified the law regarding the abolition of untouchability. Besides that, there are separate statutes like Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which provide legal safeguards to ensure abolition of untouchability. This paper enumerates the legal provisions and the Apex Court Judgments to showcase the spirit of the founding Fathers enshrined in our constitution.