Mohammed Afeef

Editor’s note: Today was the final working day of Justice Abhay Sreeniwas Oka, as he sets in to retire following a tenure of 3 years and 9 months at the Supreme Court. On this event, we reproduce this ode to Justice Oka, authored between advocates Mohammed Afeef and Basawa Prasad Kunale with inputs from Arvind Narrain, on the eve of his elevation to the top Court, originally published in August 2021.

The theme of forcing unity through law and suspicion of distinctness has been common in the discourse of the autonomy of religious minority institutions. The judgment in the UP Madarsa Act is a crucial stand against that trend, writes Afeef Mohammed.