DY Chandrachud: Hundreds of people are killed each year because they fall in love or marry outside their castes or against the wishes of their families, said Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud today while speaking on morality and its interaction with the law.
CJI made the statement in reference to:
The CJI made the statement in reference to an honour killing in Uttar Pradesh in 1991, which was covered in an article in the American magazine, Time.
The article told the story of a 15-year-old girl who eloped with a man of a lower caste aged 20. They were later murdered by the village’s upper castes, who believed their actions were justified because they followed society’s code of conduct.
The CJI was giving the Ashok Desai Memorial Lecture on the topic ‘Law and Morality: The Bounds and Reaches,’ addressing questions about the inextricably linked relationship between law, morality, and group rights.
When discussing morality, the CJI stated that expressions such as good and bad, right and wrong are frequently used in everyday conversations.
According to the CJI, while the law governs external relationships, morality governs one’s inner life and motivation. Morality appeals to our conscience and frequently influences our behaviour.
‘We can all agree that morality is a system of values that prescribes a code of conduct. But, do all of us principally agree on what constitutes morality? That is, is it necessary that what is moral for me ought to be moral to you as well?’ he inquired.
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‘Adequate morality’ according to CJI
When discussing what constitutes “adequate morality,” the CJI stated that groups that have traditionally held positions of power in society’s socioeconomic-political context have an advantage over the weaker sections in this bargaining process to achieve adequate morality.
The CJI went on to argue that vulnerable groups are at the bottom of the social hierarchy and that their consent, even if obtained, is a myth. Max Weber, for example, claimed that the Dalits had never rebelled.
He pointed out that dominant groups frequently prevent vulnerable groups from developing a distinct identity by attacking their etiquette.
The CJI elaborated on this by citing clothing as one of the tools used by dominant castes to alienate the Dalit community, where it was widely accepted that members of the Dalit community must wear marks of inferiority in order to be identified.
The CJI went on to say that even after the Constitution was drafted, the law imposed ‘adequate morality,’ that is, the morality of the dominant community.
He pointed out that in our parliamentary democracy, laws are passed by majority vote. As a result, public moral discourse frequently finds its way into majority-enacted law, and moral concerns or biases frequently creep into the law.
The CJI also emphasised the importance of refocusing the conversation on the values enshrined in the Constitution in order to counter the social morality of dominant groups that is imposed under the guise of common morality.
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Individual is the bearer of fundamental rights
According to the CJI, the individual is the bearer of fundamental rights under the Indian Constitution, and constitutional rights cannot be diluted by socially dominant morality.
The values of a progressive Constitution, according to the CJI, convey that our individual morality should always be subsumed into constitutional morality, and that our own personal biases should be subjected to retrospection and correction.
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