CLAT PG Current Affairs — 24 September 2026

The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Central Government on a public interest litigation challenging uncodified Muslim inheritance and succession laws on grounds of gender bias. The PIL argues that Muslim women receive a smaller share of inherited property than male heirs under traditional Islamic law, violating constitutional guarantees of equality. The court's decision to admit the notice signals judicial willingness to examine whether uncodified personal law can withstand fundamental rights scrutiny.

Muslim inheritance in India is governed by uncodified personal law derived from Islamic jurisprudence — primarily the Hanafi school for Sunnis — rather than a statutory code like the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. Under these rules, a daughter typically inherits half the share of a son, and widows receive a fixed fractional share. The PIL challenges this differential as violating Articles 14 (equality before law), 15 (non-discrimination on grounds of sex), and 21 (right to life with dignity) of the Constitution.

The core legal tension is between the right of religious communities to be governed by their personal law — protected under Article 25 (freedom of religion) and Article 26 (right to manage religious affairs) — and the State's obligation to ensure gender equality. The Supreme Court's decision to issue notice does not strike down any law; it merely directs the Centre to respond, which is the standard first step in PIL admission.

For CLAT PG, the critical concepts here are: (1) PIL maintainability — who can file, on what grounds; (2) the constitutional test for personal law — whether fundamental rights override religious practice; and (3) the distinction between codified and uncodified personal law. The Sabarimala case (Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, 2018) established that religious practice must withstand constitutional morality scrutiny, a principle directly relevant here. The Court has not yet ruled on the merits — the examiner will test whether you understand where the case currently stands and what legal questions remain open.

The Supreme Court has issued notice to the Central Government seeking its response on a PIL that challenges the constitutional validity of uncodified rules governing inheritance under Muslim personal law. The petition argues that these unwritten customary rules, which are not codified in any statute, violate fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The court's decision to issue notice signals that the PIL clears the threshold of prima facie maintainability and merits a formal government reply.

This PIL touches three intersecting legal domains tested heavily in CLAT PG: PIL maintainability, gender equality, and the constitutional status of personal laws.

First, PIL maintainability. The Supreme Court applies a two-stage filter: (i) does the petitioner have a bona fide public interest beyond that of an 'officious intervener,' and (ii) is the issue justiciable? The court's decision to issue notice here means it is satisfied — at least prima facie — that both conditions are met.

Second, the constitutional challenge to personal laws. Muslim inheritance law in India is largely governed by classical Islamic jurisprudence (Hanafi, Shia, etc.) and is not codified in a single statute the way Hindu succession is governed by the Hindu Succession Act, 1956. The PIL argues that uncodified rules — applied by courts through judge-made recognition — cannot escape constitutional scrutiny under Articles 14 (equality), 15 (non-discrimination), and 21 (dignity).

Third, gender equality. Muslim personal law on inheritance has long been critiqued for giving female heirs half the share of male heirs in equivalent positions. Courts have tested whether personal law is 'law' under Article 13 and therefore subject to Part III. The Supreme Court in Shayara Bano (Triple Talaq, 2017) held that a personal law practice can be struck down if it violates fundamental rights, opening the door for challenges like this one.

The examiner is interested in whether the aspirant can identify: what makes a PIL maintainable, what the constitutional basis of challenge to personal law is, and which test the court uses to admit such challenges.

The Supreme Court of India has clarified that a High Court's physical location or the venue where arbitration sittings are held does not determine the juridical seat of arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The juridical seat is fixed by the agreement of parties or by the tribunal, not by geography of hearings. This distinction between 'seat' and 'venue' governs which court has supervisory jurisdiction over arbitration proceedings.

This ruling sharpens one of the most contested distinctions in Indian arbitration law: the difference between the 'seat' and the 'venue' of arbitration.

The juridical seat of arbitration is the legal home of the proceedings — it determines which court has exclusive supervisory jurisdiction under Sections 9, 14, 34, and 37 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The venue, by contrast, is merely the physical location where hearings happen for logistical convenience.

The Supreme Court has consistently held, starting with Bharat Aluminium Co. v. Kaiser Aluminium (BALCO, 2012), that Part I of the Act applies only when the seat is in India. Later, in BGS SGS SOMA JV v. NHPC (2019), the Court held that designation of a 'place' of arbitration in an agreement ordinarily connotes the seat, not merely a convenient venue.

The present ruling extends this logic: even if a High Court physically sits in City X and hearings take place there, that does not make City X the juridical seat. Parties must look to their arbitration agreement or the tribunal's order to determine the seat.

For CLAT PG aspirants, this matters because the examiner frequently tests the seat-venue distinction through passage-based questions that present a fact pattern — two cities, an arbitration clause, a hearing location — and asks which court has jurisdiction. The answer always turns on the seat, not the venue.

The Supreme Court held that the location of a High Court that appoints an arbitrator under Section 11 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 does not automatically become the seat of arbitration. The seat must be determined by the arbitration agreement, the contract's governing clauses, or the arbitral tribunal's own designation — not by the court that exercises the appointment jurisdiction. This ruling directly settles which court has supervisory jurisdiction over subsequent arbitral proceedings.

This judgment addresses one of the most litigated procedural questions in Indian arbitration law: which court has supervisory jurisdiction over an arbitration?

Under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, two provisions matter most. Section 11 empowers the Supreme Court or a High Court to appoint an arbitrator when parties fail to do so. Section 2(1)(e) defines 'Court' as the principal civil court of original jurisdiction at the seat of arbitration — and it is that court (not the Section 11 court) that exercises ongoing supervisory powers.

The 'seat' of arbitration is a legal concept distinct from the 'venue' (mere physical location of hearings). The seat determines the curial law — the procedural law governing the arbitration — and consequently which court can hear challenges to awards, interim applications, and so on.

Prior to this ruling, a recurring confusion arose: parties assumed that because a High Court in City X appointed the arbitrator, City X became the seat. The Supreme Court has now categorically rejected this. The seat flows from the contract or from the tribunal's designation, not from the court that happened to appoint the arbitrator.

The governing precedents are Bharat Aluminium Co. v. Kaiser Aluminium (BALCO, 2012) — which established the seat-venue distinction — and subsequent cases like BGS SGS SOMA JV v. NHPC (2019), which reinforced that the seat confers exclusive supervisory jurisdiction. This new ruling is a natural extension: it closes the loophole created by Section 11 appointment orders.

The Delhi High Court upheld an arbitral award ordering Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) to pay demurrage — a penalty for ships delayed beyond the agreed loading period. SAIL invoked force majeure, arguing COVID-19 lockdowns prevented cargo operations. The court rejected this, finding the government had specifically designated cargo loading and unloading as essential services during the pandemic. Because operations were not legally prevented, the contractual excuse of force majeure did not apply.

Demurrage is a contractual penalty paid by a charterer (here, SAIL) when a ship is detained at port beyond the agreed free time for loading or unloading. It compensates the shipowner for the delay. Force majeure is a contractual doctrine — codified in spirit under Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (doctrine of frustration) and expressly in commercial contracts as a clause — that excuses a party from performance when an extraordinary event beyond their control makes performance impossible or illegal.

The critical distinction the Delhi High Court drew is between impossibility and inconvenience. Force majeure (and Section 56 frustration) requires that performance become impossible or illegal — not merely more difficult or commercially inconvenient. Since the Government of India's lockdown orders under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 expressly kept port and cargo operations in the 'essential services' category, SAIL could not claim legal prevention of performance.

This reflects the classical rule: a self-induced impossibility, or one that the law itself carves out an exception to, cannot ground a force majeure plea. The court's reasoning also reinforces the principle that arbitral awards on mixed questions of fact and law receive deference under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 — courts will not re-examine factual findings unless they violate public policy. For CLAT PG aspirants, this case sits at the intersection of frustration of contract, force majeure clauses, and the limits of judicial interference in arbitration.