NEW DELHI: Former attorney general Goolam E Vahanvati’s widow Nafisa Vahanvati on Monday lent her support to women of her Dawoodi Bohra community who have been fighting against a PIL seeking a ban on their religious custom of female genital circumcision (FGC).

Appearing for Nafisa, senior advocate Meenakshi Arora told a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud that the PIL had misconstrued female genital circumcision, involving snipping of the clitoris, as female genital mutilation (FGM) to project it as a grave violation of women’s privacy and dignity.

Arora said the Bohra community’s religious texts, over 1,000 years old, had provided for FGC, akin to male circumcision, and also provided that no husband should force himself on an unwilling wife. “If that was the progressive nature of the religious texts in prohibiting marital rape , can it be said that the religious texts advocate FGC to make a woman an object of sex for men? FGC involves scraping of the foreskin of clitoris and nothing more,” she argued.

Appearing for a large number of community women who supported the FGC custom, senior advocate A M Singhvi said the issue of constitutional validity of the practice should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench as was done in the scrutiny of other religious practices like triple talaq, polygamy and entry of women in the age group of 10-50 years into the Ayyappa temple in Sabarimala.

Justice Chandrachud said: “Do you take into account the permanent scar and psychological injury the custom causes to a young girl by snipping her genitalia? Constitution says no one can cause injury to another. This has nothing to do with religious practices.”

Singhvi said it was very difficult to adjudicate such issues on the basis of claims made in a PIL. “The petitioners have produced no data about the practice. No statistics from National Crime Records Bureau about it being forced on young girls... The danger is of adjudicating this issue through a PIL, which does not differentiate between FGC and FGM,” Singhvi said. Arguments will continue on Tuesday.

