A 9-judge Bench of the Supreme Court observed on Monday that making offerings at places of worship may be a religious practice, but the law can regulate the money donated at such places if it is used for “terrorism” or “running casinos”.
The top court said the old practices of “human sacrifices” and ‘sati’ amounted to murder under law and could not be saved on ground of “essential religious practice”.
The Constitution bench, headed by Chief Justice SA Bobde, made these observations as it commenced hearing to deliberate upon the issues pertaining to the scope of freedom of religion as also of judicial scrutiny into “essential religious practices” of separate “religious denominations”.
The Bench is also examining the issue whether a person, who does not belong to a particular faith, can file a PIL questioning the religious practice of another religion or sect of a religion. The questions have arisen out of a judgement in the Sabarimala case.
“The IPC can be read as the guard against the practice of human sacrifices, because it is murder under the IPC. Likewise ‘sati’ also amounted to murder... Even a religious aspect can be the subject matter of reform,” said the Bench which also included justices R Banumathi, Ashok Bhushan, L Nageswara Rao, MM Shantanagoudar, SA Nazeer, R Subhash Reddy, BR Gavai and Surya Kant.