New Delhi: A Mizo woman named Lalsangliani Colney has approached the Supreme Court challenging the state’s new marriage law on grounds that it discriminates against Mizo women who marry non-Mizos.
Essentially, the plea filed through advocate Pulkit Agarwal challenges the validity of the amendments made to the Mizo Marriage, and Inheritance of Property (Amendment) Act 2026, which replaced the earlier 2014 law. Significantly, the law mandates that a Mizo woman who marries a non-Mizo man will no longer be governed by Mizo customary law and will lose her Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
The plea argues that the amended Section 2 restricts the Act to marriages in which both spouses are members of the Mizo tribe, or where only the husband is Mizo. As a result, a Mizo woman who marries a non-Mizo man is excluded from the Act’s protections, while a Mizo man remains covered irrespective of whom he marries.
Consequently, the plea argues that the amendment, passed in February this year in the Mizoram Legislative Assembly, creates a gender-based classification tied to the husband’s identity and a woman’s choice of spouse.
This classification results in arbitrariness and discrimination, violating Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality and non-discrimination, the plea states.
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Questions around Mizo identity
The plea further points to Section 3(m) of the Act which redefines the expression “Mizo” as any individual who is Mizo by birth or whose father belongs to any Mizo tribe and includes a legally adopted child.
Prior to this, the provision did not have a gendered connotation, as it defined “Mizo” identity as individuals who were Mizo by birth, or had been adopted by Mizo persons.
Essentially, this amendment accords significance to paternal lineage and alters the definition from the 2014 law, thereby carving out a gender-based distinction within the statute. “This results not only in the effective marginalisation of the independent identity of a Mizo woman, but also leads to the unequal treatment of children born to Mizo women who marry non-Mizo men,” the plea argues.
In contrast, children born to Mizo men, out of marriages with non-Mizo women, continue to reap the benefits of the law, the plea adds.
Other points of contention
The petition also sought to strike down these amendments to the 2014 law, on grounds of lack of legislative competence, as they violate the constitutional scheme governing recognition of Scheduled Tribes under Articles 341 and 342, which empower the President to identify and list Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) for each state or union territory.
“By rendering the applicability of the statutory framework contingent upon paternal lineage and the identity of the spouse, the amendments introduce criteria extraneous to an individual’s own community identity and condition access to statutory rights and protections on factors not contemplated by the constitutional framework,” the plea says.
Effectively, the new law discriminates against Mizo women who marry non-Mizo men, and the children born out of such marriages are excluded from the statutory regime, regardless of their connection to the Mizo community.
The plea further argues that although the amended law’s provisions do not expressly alter the notified list of STs, their practical operation affects how these women and children are recognized and treated within a community-specific legal framework.
The new law also deprives Mizo women of access to a comprehensive statutory framework governing essential aspects of civil life, including marriage, dissolution of marriage, maintenance, custody of children, property relations, and inheritance, it adds.
The practical effect of such exclusion is not confined to identity alone, but extends to denial or uncertainty in access to educational opportunities, healthcare facilities, welfare schemes, reservation benefits, and other constitutional and statutory protections intended for historically disadvantaged tribal communities, the petitioners argue.
(Edited by Varnika Dhawan)
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