Social practices often differ from constitutional values, Supreme Court Justice Ujjal Bhuyan recently said while while highlighting an incident involving denial of accommodation to a Muslim student.
Justice Bhuyan was speaking at a seminar organised by the Telangana Judges Association and the Telangana State Judicial Academy in Hyderabad on the theme Constitutional Morality and Role of District Judiciary.
He recounted an incident involving his daughter’s friend who was searching for accommodation in Delhi and how the landlady denied accommodation to the student after coming to know of her religious identity.
“She approached a landlady who was running a working women’s hostel in her building in South Delhi. The landlady asked her as to what her name was. When she told her name, which was quite ambivalent, the landlady queried further and asked her about her surname and when she said that, it revealed her Muslim identity. The landlady then told her quite bluntly that accommodation was not available and that she could search for some other place.”
He also referred to an incident in Odisha relating to the mid-day meal scheme. Justice Bhuyan said some parents objected to their children eating food prepared by Dalit women engaged as cooks under the programme, and raised protests demanding that their children not be served such meals.
Justice Bhuyan explained such incidents demonstrate broader societal divisions that persist despite constitutional guarantees. He said,
“The above two are just random examples, just the tip of the iceberg revealing how deep the societal faultlines are. In fact, this is a mirror to us showing how distant we still are from the benchmark of constitutional morality even after seventy five years into our republic.”
Explaining what he meant by constitutional morality, Justice Bhuyan said it provides the standard that public institutions and citizens alike are expected to follow.
“Constitutional morality is the benchmark which the Constitution expects all of us to adhere to. The constitutional objective is fraternity and brotherhood,” explained Justice Bhuyan.
Justice Bhuyan also urged judges to assess issues on constitutional values rather than dominant social opinion.
He stressed the importance of aligning everyday conduct with the principles of equality and fraternity embedded in the Constitution.
He noted that the Constitution may demand a higher standard than prevailing social norms saying,
“The emphasis on constitutional morality is therefore grounded on the premise that the morality that we practice at home or at the community level are often at variance with the morality that the Constitution expects us to practice.”