The Supreme Court has sought the Union government's response on a petition challenging the constitutional validity of uncodified Muslim personal law inheritance rules that give women a smaller share of ancestral and family property than men. The plea argues these practices violate Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution. The court's notice to the Centre marks the first formal judicial scrutiny of Muslim inheritance rules on equality grounds in recent years.

Muslim personal law in India governing inheritance is largely uncodified and derives from classical Hanafi jurisprudence as applied by courts since the colonial era. Unlike Hindu succession, which was codified and reformed by the Hindu Succession Act 1956 (and significantly amended in 2005 to give daughters equal coparcenary rights), Muslim inheritance has never been subjected to comprehensive statutory reform. Under classical rules, a female heir typically receives half the share of a male heir in the same class — for example, a daughter receives half what a son receives.

The constitutional challenge rests on three pillars. First, Article 14 guarantees equality before law and equal protection of laws — differential inheritance solely on grounds of sex may fail the reasonable classification test. Second, Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth; Article 15(3) permits special provisions for women, but the petition argues the personal law disadvantages rather than protects women. Third, Article 21's expansive reading post-Maneka Gandhi includes the right to live with dignity, which arguably encompasses equal economic participation in family property.

The court's power to scrutinise personal law has evolved since State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali (1952), which held personal law outside Part III challenge, through Sarla Mudgal and Shah Bano, to the triple talaq verdict in Shayara Bano v. Union of India (2017), where a five-judge bench struck down instantaneous triple talaq as manifestly arbitrary. That precedent established that personal law practices can be tested against fundamental rights when codified or given statutory recognition. The current petition seeks to extend that logic to inheritance.