Question

if you were given the choice to participate in the CAdebate ,what solution you suggest to define untouchability

Answer 1

Explanation:

Previously on this blog, we have discussed the judgment of the Supreme Court in Venkataramana Devaru (constitutional validity of temple-entry legislation), and the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Sinha in Sardar Saifuddin (constitutional validity of prohibiting excommunication). What unites these two opinions is not merely their upholding laws designed to recalibrate the relationship between religious communities and their members in more equitable directions, but their invocation of Article 17 of the Constitution (prohibition of untouchability) to do so. In Venkataramana Devaru, the Supreme Court read Article 25(2)(b) of the Constitution alongwith Article 17, in order to have it prevail over the contrary injunction of Article 26(b). And in Saifuddin, Sinha CJ understood Article 17 to contain a broad prohibition of outcasting and a constraint upon the ability of communities to treat one of their own as a “pariah”.