The secular disengagement agenda also includes personal law reform (with a secular Uniform Civil Code as the ultimate goal); abolition of religion-based tax benefits to Hindus (through the institution of Hindu Undivided Family); robust antidiscrimination provisions to prevent housing, education and employment discrimination on the grounds of religion; end to the state’s meddlesome role in temple trusts; end to symbolic religious practices by state institutions (eg bhumi-poojan); repeal of anti-conversion legislation; repeal of cow-slaughter bans; express enumeration of atheists and agnostics in the national census; effective measures to combat religious violence; robust protection for anti-religious speech etc. Acceptable exceptions will include cases where religious doctrine causes harm, e.g. open access to temples for dalits.
The agenda will require nuanced discursive responses to allegations of decontextualised naïvety and claims of Indian-exceptionalism (although the one thing we will perhaps not be guilty of is partisanship). Are liberals up for the fight?
One minor thing – the bench was Justice Alam and Justice Desai, not Justice Kabir.
thanks – the Indian Express report got it wrong then.
THe Hindu Undivided Family is not a "tax benefit", really. It is a different kind of assessee for tax. The historical reason for it being a separate taxable entity was that HUFs used to (and in smaller towns and villages, still do) act as a separate economic unit. It has been used for various tax "planning" schemes, I don't deny, but it's not a "benefit".
ok, so 'benefit' was loosely used. but the difference will surely amount to disparate impact/ indirect discrimination in any jurisdiction with a sophisticated antidiscrimination regime, which looks not only at intent/purpose behind a measure but also its impact. here, the impact of HUF is that similarly situated Hindus and Christians end up paying different amounts of taxes. that, to me, sounds very much like indirect discrimination.