The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to examine a petition on whether Muslims can be governed by the Indian Succession Act instead of the Shariat law on inheritance without renouncing their faith, PTI reported.

The 1925 Indian Succession Act, which governs the transfer of property after a person’s death, is generally applicable to all citizens regardless of their religion except Muslims. Islamic law, or Shariat, outlines a system for the distribution of the property of a deceased Muslim, allocating fixed shares to relatives.

In a petition, a Muslim man Naushad KK from Kerala’s Thrissur district said that he wanted to be governed by the succession law instead of Shariat without giving up Islam as his religion.

A bench of Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar took note of the petition and sought the responses of the Centre and the Kerala government in the matter, PTI reported.

The bench noted that another similar petition was pending before it.

In the other petition, a woman Safiya PM, a resident of Kerala’s Alappuzha district, sought that Muslims who had renounced their faith be governed by the Indian Succession Act instead of the Islamic law in matters related to succession and inheritance, Live Law reported.

Prashant Padmanabhan, who is the advocate-on-record in Sufiya’s petition, told the court that Safiya’s petition was different from Naushad’s as she had renounced her faith whereas he was still a practising Muslim.

The advocate added that another petition filed by the Quran Sunnath Society in 2016 challenging Section 58 of the Indian Succession Act was also pending before it. Section 58 of the Act excludes Muslims from its application.

The court directed that Naushad’s petition be tagged with all the similar pending cases, according to PTI.