New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday paved the way for a Parsi woman married to a Hindu to break the tradition and enter the Tower of Silence whenever the funeral prayers of her aged parents are performed.
The woman had married a Hindu under the Special Marriage Act in 1991 and subsequently she was denied entry into the Parsi temple of fire and was not allowed to participate in other rituals.
Under the Parsi law, she was also denied the right to visit the Tower of Silence in the event of her father’s death to perform last rites.
A five-judge Consti-tution Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan recorded the undertaking of Parsi Anjuman Trust and the Priest in Valsad in Mumbai that it would allow the petitioner Goolrokh M. Gupta and her sister, who are married to Hindus , to enter fire temple or “tower of silence”.
