- The Kerala High Court stated on Tuesday that it was constrained by Supreme Court precedent to the contrary and could not rule that a Muslim woman may be appointed guardian of her young child's property.
- Even though it may be possible to argue that a personal law prohibiting Muslim women from serving as guardians violates Articles 14 and 15 and is therefore invalid, the High Court cannot address this issue because it is constrained by precedents set by the Supreme Court, according to a division bench of Justices PB Suresh Kumar and CS Sudha.
- The Shayara Bano case, in which it was determined that Muslim personal law-Shariat practises cannot be required to abide by the provisions of Part III - Fundamental Rights of the Constitution applicable to State actions, in accordance with Article 13 of the Constitution, was heavily cited by the Court.\\
- The Supreme Court has ruled in a number of cases that a Muslim woman cannot be the guardian of her minor children, so the High Court determined that it must uphold this ruling as required by Article 141 of the Constitution.
- The Court acknowledged that if succession and other secular affairs have nothing to do with religion, then guardianship would likewise fall under this category.
- The appellants asserted that a woman has actually been acknowledged as guardian of her husband's house as well as his wards by citing a few Hadiths.
- They argued that the Quran has no verses that forbid a mother from serving as a child's guardian. It was further argued that no interpretation that is not supported by the Quran or Hadith can be used to understand Muslim law.
- It was noted that none of the Supreme Court's rulings in this matter took these Hadiths into account. The appellants contended that because such rulings were rendered in secret, they cannot serve as precedent for a claim that has never been raised or decided.
- However, the responses said that both the Quran and the Hadith did not support the idea that a mother could serve as a guardian, and that several verses of the Quran explicitly declared the opposite.
- The Court noted that even though the precedents holding that a mother cannot serve as a guardian were issued sub silentio, it has also been established in Ballabhadas Mathurdas Lakhani v. Municipal Committee, Malkapur that the High Court cannot disregard an order of the Supreme Court simply because it believes "the relevant provisions were not brought to the Court's attention."
- The issue at hand came up as the Court was debating an appeal against a decree of partition in which one of the parties was a woman who served as the property guardian for her son.
- The Court accepted the appeal and determined that the parties were bound by the division agreement because it had been signed before the lawsuit was filed, not because the mother was the child's legal guardian.
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