New Delhi: The Supreme Court Thursday expressed serious apprehension over allowing individuals to challenge religious practices and said it would break every religion and the constitutional court as thousands of people would clog the courts with PILs to quash customs and norms based on self-assessment of these customs. The remarks came from a bench comprising CJI Surya Kant, Justices BV Nagarathna, MM Sundaresh, A Amanullah, Arvind Kumar, AG Masih, PB Varale, R Mahadevan and Joymalya Bagchi, when senior lawyer Raju Ramachandran said that since the Constitution focuses on protecting the fundamental rights of an individual, the constitutional courts must step in if any religious custom or practice violates the rights of an individual. Justice Nagarathna said, “If every person is free to approach the constitutional court to question or challenge religious practices and customs, what will happen to our civilization, which is intrinsically linked to religion?” Justice Sundaresh said, “In such a scenario, every religion and constitutional court will break down as thousands of persons having different views about religion and religious practices will come to the court and disrupt the system. A religious custom or practice may be regressive from one person’s point of view, and may be an essential religious practice for another. How does the court decide who is right? “Should the courts get stuck in adjudicating on religious matters?” He clarified that he did not mean that a person tortured because of a religious practice has no remedy. He can certainly approach the civil courts. In the debate on fundamental rights and faith-based customs, Ramachandran stuck to his opinion that the fundamental rights of the individual cannot be violated through religious customs. “We are a constitutional civilization where nothing can violate fundamental rights. Any violation will give the aggrieved person the right to approach the courts under Article 32 of the Constitution,” he said.