A petition has been filed with the Supreme Court, in the case of Bushara Ali vs Irfan Ahammed and ors, stating that property partition under Muslim personal law laws is biased towards women because they are only entitled to half the share of property that males receive during intestate succession. Recently, a bench of Justices Krishna Murari and Sanjay Karol issued a notice in the matter and declared status quo on a petition filed by one Bushara Ali seeking to prevent the respondents from alienating a major portion of the scheduled property in a suit.

The petition, filed by counsel Bijo Mathew Joy, claimed that, notwithstanding a constitutional guarantee, Muslim women experience prejudice, and that inheritance of property under Shariat Law is discriminating towards women. According to the petition, Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, violates Article 15 of the Constitution, which forbids discrimination based on religion, race, caste, gender, or place of birth. The petitioner is a decree holder in a partition suit filed after her father died intestate and without a will. In comparison to her brothers, she was given only half of the shares in a property.

A trial court order had sustained such a partition, and a portion of the land was purchased for the construction of a highway during the final decree processes. The petitioner’s brothers then relinquished some of the land to the panchayat and sold a large chunk of the remaining scheduled property. As an attorney commissioner gave the petitioner a small property near a dump yard, she filed a complaint with the Kerala High Court.