India's Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Shariah courts have no legal authority in India and their rulings cannot be forced upon those have not sought a religious opinion.
The top court said individuals can abide by the courts' verdicts if they choose to, but there is no legal enforcement.
The Supreme Court bench headed by judge CK Prasad ruled on the case filed by a Delhi lawyer, who alleged that Shariah courts act as a "parallel judiciary."
All India Muslim Personal Law Board, the country's top Muslim legal body, argued that the fatwas, rulings passed by Shariah courts, are "opinion."
"There is nothing new in this Supreme Court ruling," a member of the Board told Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity. "All India Muslim Personal Law Board has always maintained that fatwa or ruling by Shariah courts cannot be legally enforced."
Mufti Mohammed Ismail, a senior cleric at the Islamic school Darul Uloom Deoband, said the ruling will unnecessarily give critics of Shariah a chance to malign Islamic civil law.
India is governed by secular law except in matters of personal law for marriage, succession, inheritance and divorce, where each community is guided by their own personal law.
The case dates to 2005 when a Muslim woman named Imrana was raped by her father- in-law, then ordered to live with him, by a Shariah court that decided the rape had rendered her marriage "null and void."
