Muslims slam Markandey Katju's remark on civil code

Sections of Muslims have criticized Press Council of India chairman, justice Markandey Katju, for his remark favouring a uniform civil code and that Muslim personal law is unjust as treats women as inferior and should be done away with.

"What he has said is blasphemous. He hasn't experienced it. He is not sailing on that boat (Muslim personal law) that he should say what he has," said advocate Badruddin A Shaikh. "Let him go through the proper channels and do whatever he has to do legally. He shouldn't make such comments. We will file a petition."

The lawyer said they would also consider writing to the chief justice of India and the President.

Addressing the Women's Press Corps earlier this week, Katju said every modern country has one single law for everybody, but there were separate laws in India because of vote banks.

The uniform civil code matter was raised strongly after the Shah Bano case judgment.

Writer Shakil Warsi felt "it was Rajiv Gandhi's foolishness that he enacted a law to repeal the Supreme Court judgment. Indian Muslims paid a heavy price for that and are still paying for it. The Ayodhya movement was a repercussion of that."

He explained that the judgment was against the Shariah and that there could have been other ways to look at it.

"All the hate campaigns started from there. Hindus felt that if a court judgment could be repealed why could it not be done in their case. Then Rajiv Gandhi bargained with Shilanyas. Now trying to adopt a uniform civil code would be a bigger foolishness and lead to further anarchy," said Warsi.

Zubair Asmi, convenor, Indians for Justice, said, "We are looking at legal angles to tackle this."