Whether a Muslim Woman is Entitled to be a Legal Guardian of her Minor Children: A Commentary on C Abdul Aziz & Ors. V. Chembukandy Safiya & Ors, 2022 LiveLaw (Ker) 332

The Indian constitution guarantees the right to equality to every individual, by Article 14. But, when it comes to personal laws, this concept is jeopardised, as different personal laws carry different approaches toward gender identity. Although through various judicial interpretations, the judiciary tries to harmonise the concept of equality with the personal laws, the flaws still exist and religious resistance and influences have been often limiting the scope of application of these personal laws. Muslim personal laws are intriguing, where long interpretations and expertise in the religious text verses should be known for the application of the law. Through the recent legal development, such as the Triple talaq case, the court played an important role in interpreting the personal law by holding the constitutional values, and declaring practices like Triple talaq as unconstitutional. Such a progressive approach has also been taken in the present case which has been subjected to case comment. Through this Case comment, the author here tries to analyse various aspects such as the Competency of a Muslim mother to Act as a Guardian, whether a Personal law can be considered a ‘Law’, the scope of religious sources in interpreting an Individual’s, right, and finally analyses the validity of the partition deed executed on the behalf of the minors.