Minority status of Jains and personal laws: A knotty affair

The well-known adage “ignorance of law is no excuse” was once suffixed by the late justice VR Krishna Iyer with the words “except for the lower courts”. An astounding instance of this has been recently reported from Madhya Pradesh where a family court refused to apply the divorce law under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 to several Jain couples on the ground that their community had been recognised by the Union government as a minority under the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992. Rulers of some princely states also enacted similar laws among which were the Mysore Hindu Law Women’s Rights Act of 1933 and the Baroda Hindu Nibandh of 1937. Such a conclusion is not warranted even by the remotest implications of either the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 or the National Commission for Minorities Act of 1992. The Indore Bench of the Madhya Pradesh HC rightly held in the appeal that “the family court judge has committed grave illegality and manifested impropriety in concluding that the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 are not applicable to the members of Jain community.” Tahir Mahmood is professor of law and former member of the Law Commission of India.The views expressed are personal