‘Sharia courts have no legal status, their rulings not binding on Indian citizens’: Read what SC said while rejecting AIMPLB’s push for parallel judiciary

The ‘Sharia Court’, ‘Court of Qazi’, ‘Darul-Qaza’ or ‘Kajiyat’, have no legal recognition and their observations are not legally binding. The Supreme Court of India ruled this on the 28th of April 2025, while hearing the case of a Muslim woman who challenged the Allahabad High Court’s 2018 decision upholding a family court’s decision not to award her any maintenance on the ground that she was the cause of the dispute.

The court gave the woman ₹4,000 in monthly support from the date she first filed the petition, overturning the Allahabad High Court’s decision.  Additionally, the husband was ordered to keep providing for the children’s financial needs until they reached adulthood.

Despite being focused on a specific case, the Supreme Court’s ruling upholds a more general constitutional principle: India’s legal system cannot be superseded or overruled by Islamic statements or arbitration through Sharia courts.  Although parties may voluntarily choose to abide by such decisions, they cannot be enforced by the law.  Most importantly, the Supreme Court minced no words in making it abundantly clear that only Indian courts have the power to make decisions when rights under statutory provisions, like maintenance, are at issue.

“‘Court of Kazi’, ‘Court of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat’, ‘Sharia Court’, etcetera, by whatever name styled, have no recognition in law,” the Supreme Court bench comprising justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Ahsanuddin Amanullah said.

Compromise in Darul Qaza, divorce in Darul Qaza: The paradox of Sharia courts in a secular country with a full-fledged judiciary

In the present case, the Muslim man named Gaffar Khan had earlier obtained a talaqnama through a Darul Qaza (Qaziyat) in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, and used it to argue against his obligation to pay. The Supreme Court, however, clarified that such forums are not recognised in Indian law and their declarations are not legally binding.

Notably, the couple were both in their second marriage when they tied the knot in 2002. The husband is employed with the Border Security Force (BSF). The couple had two children together. However, their marriage turned bitter later on. In 2005, the husband filed for divorce in the ‘Court of Kazi’, Bhopal, securing a compromise on 22nd November 2005. Under this, the duo agreed to live together.

However, their marriage further declined as the appellant woman named Shahjahan claimed her husband used to beat her, demanded dowry, including a motorcycle and ₹50,000. She also alleged that Gaffar Khan forced her and the children out of their home in May 2008. Subsequently, the husband then sought a divorce again, this time in the ‘Court of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat’, Bhopal, in September 2008.

However, soon after, the Muslim woman filed a plea with the Family Court seeking maintenance of ₹5,000 a month for herself and ₹1,000 each for their two children.  The court, however, decided to grant maintenance only for children since the woman voluntarily decided to leave her matrimonial home. The court had also said that since it was the petitioner woman’s second marriage, there was no question of dowry demands. The matter reached the Allahabad High Court, which alarmingly upheld the Family Court’s ruling, saying that the woman’s separation lacked justification and the Family Court’s observations were not perverse.

Fast forward to 2025, the Supreme Court overturned the Allahabad High Court’s decision and ordered the husband to provide maintenance to the petitioner. In this case, the apex court bench made several observations that negate the legal status of Sharia courts and similar Islamic bodies functioning as a parallel judiciary. This came after Shahjahan moved the Supreme Court challenging the rulings of the lower courts, contending that she was illiterate, had no income and that she was wrongly blamed for leaving the matrimonial home. She disputed the lower court’s reliance on the ‘compromise deed’ and Sharia court divorce.

Supreme Court’s observations regarding the legal status of Sharia Courts

In its analysis of the present case, the Supreme Court observed that the proceedings made several references to bodies such as the “Court of Kazi,” the “Court of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat,” and the “Sharia Court.” In response, the Court addressed this matter in a “Post-Script” section of its ruling.

Under this, the apex court cited the 2014 Vishwa Lochan Madan vs Union of India case. In that case, the court had undertaken the examination of whether Dar-ul-Qaza is a parallel court and “fatwa” has any legal status. The court had observed that while the adjudication by a legal authority sanctioned by law is enforceable and binding and meant to be obeyed unless upset by an authority provided by law itself, however, the decisions of Dar-ul-Qaza or the fatwa “do not satisfy” any of these requirements. Dar-ul-Qaza is “neither created nor sanctioned by any law made by the competent legislature.”

“Therefore, the opinion or the fatwa issued by Dar-ul-Qaza or for that matter anybody is not adjudication of dispute by an authority under a judicial system sanctioned by law. A Qazi or Mufti has no authority or powers to impose his opinion and enforce his fatwa on anyone by any coercive method. In fact, whatever may be the status of fatwa during Mogul or British Rule, it has no place in independent India under our constitutional scheme. It has no legal sanction and cannot be enforced by any legal process either by the Dar-ul-Qaza issuing that or the person concerned or for that matter anybody. The person or the body concerned may ignore it and it will not be necessary for anybody to challenge it before any court of law. It can simply be ignored,” the Supreme Court said in its 2014 ruling in the Vishwa Lochan Madan vs Union of India case.

In the same ruling, the Supreme Court back in 2014 had also said that the Fatwa or Islamic proclamation has no legal status in our constitutional scheme. Notwithstanding that, it is an admitted position that fatwas have been issued and are being issued. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board feels the “necessity of establishment of a network of judicial system throughout the country and Muslims should be made aware that they should get their disputes decided by the Qazis”.

However, the court had observed that a Fatwa is bereft of any legal pedigree and has no sanction in the laws of the land. They are not part of the corpus juris of the State. A fatwa is an opinion; only an expert is expected to give. It is not a decree, nor binding on the court or the State or the individual. Although not legally binding, the Supreme Court had observed that the existence of Darul-Qaza or the practice of issuing Fatwas is not essentially illegal. In addition, the court said that the issuance of a Fatwa should not be objected to as long as it does not infringe upon the rights of individuals granted under the law.

Citing the Supreme Court’s observations made in the 2014 Vishwa Lochan Madan case, the Supreme Court bench recently said that ‘Court of Kazi’, ‘Court of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat’, ‘Sharia Court’, etc., by whatever name styled, have no recognition in law.

The top court came down heavily upon the approach of the Family Court and the Allahabad High Court of relying on the ‘settlement deed’ presented before the ‘Qazi court’ in Bhopal. The bench stressed that courts cannot rely on the declarations of non-judicial bodies like Sharia courts to decide legal entitlements.

“As noted in Vishwa Lochan Madan (supra), any declaration/decision by such bodies, by whatever name labelled, is not binding on anyone and is unenforceable by resort to any coercive measure. The only way such declaration/decision can withstand scrutiny in the eye of law could be when the affected parties accept such declaration/decision by acting thereon or accepting it and when such action does not conflict with any other law. Even then, such declaration/decision, at best, would only be valid inter-se the parties that choose to act upon/accept the same, and not a third-party,” the recently passed Supreme Court order reads.

The court also slammed the Family Court for its speculative and “baseless” observation that just because it was the petitioner and respondent no-2’s (husband, Gaffar Khan) second marriage, there was no likelihood of a dowry demand. It said that such an observation was “unknown to the canons of law.”

“The family court’s observation that there was no likelihood of dowry demand because it was a second marriage is baseless and contrary to legal reasoning,” the Supreme Court stated.

The court also noted that the Family Court’s assumption that Shahjahan caused the marital discord was based on mere conjecture and was devoid of any evidence.

In the present case, the apex court directed the husband to pay Rs 4,000/- per month as maintenance to the appellant, from the date of filing of the maintenance petition before the Family Court. The maintenance awarded to the children will also be payable from the date of filing of the maintenance petition before the Family Court.

Are Sharia courts ‘supreme’ for Indian Muslims?

Over the years, several Muslim clerics and politicians have issued statements prioritising Sharia over the constitution, with many asserting that Indian Muslims will follow only Sharia. A latest example of this came on 14^th April 2025, when Hafizul Hasan, a minister in the Jharkhand government, said that for him, Sharia comes before the constitution. In an accidental moment of truth, Hasan divulged the Al-Taqqiya Islamists often use to fool ‘secularists’, as he said that “We carry the Quran in our hearts and the Constitution in our hands. Muslims walk with the Quran in their hearts and the Constitution in their hands.”

There are around 100 Sharia courts in ‘secular’ India. Back in 2023, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) boasted that there are over 100 Sharia courts in India and that AIMPLB intends to set up such Islamic courts in all of India’s Muslim majority districts. In 2018, too, the Muslim body had said it plans to open Darul-Qaza (Sharia courts) in all districts of the country.

In 2020, AIMIM urged Muslims to disregard the Indian Judiciary and approach Sharia courts to resolve their disputes. This, however, was not shocking as Hamid Ansari, the former Vice President of India, had also once made a similar assertion. He had backed the idea of setting up the Shariat courts in every district of the country, saying that each community has the right to practice its own personal law. 

While AIMPLB, Muslim-appeasing politicians and Islamists continue to push Muslims towards resolving their disputes through Sharia-courts or Darul-Qaza, essentially bolstering a parallel judiciary functioning on Islamic religious lines, the Family Court in the Shahjahan vs State of Uttar Pradesh vs others case, treating the compromise deed from the ‘Court of Kazi’ and the Talagnama from Darul-Qaza as authoritative, essentially granted judicial legitimacy to non-judicial Islamic entities. As the Supreme Court observed, this effectively violated the principle that only statutory courts, established under the Constitution of India, can adjudicate disputes. The courts placing reliance on non-judicial entities for settling disputes essentially undermines the country’s secular legal framework while endorsing a parallel judicial system in violation of constitutional principles.

The Allahabad High Court, upholding the same, was even more alarming. If courts themselves would extend legitimacy to the Sharia courts or rely on the declarations of such non-judicial bodies to determine legal entitlements, what would even be the point of existence of the judicial system in India? The Supreme Court’s intervention, however, overturned this miscarriage of justice and reaffirmed the primacy of statutory law while also reiterating that Sharia Courts/Darul-Qaza, Kazi Courts or any such Islamic ‘courts’ are non-legal entities and their ‘rulings’ are not legally binding.

News