Expulsion of Triple Talaq From India

After a long and healthy discussion, parliament passed a law that ejects the practice of triple talaq from India on 26 July, 2019. Triple talaq had a long history behind him it was practiced since the period of Caliph Umar, more than 1400 years ago. A hadith by An-Nasai stated that Muhammad had accused a man of mocking the Quran by uttering thrice in one go. Talaq pronounced thrice simultaneously from Muhammad to the first two years of Umar’s reign as caliph was only considered as a single divorce according to Sahih Muslim. The latter however allowed it, upon seeing the people did not observe the iddah, but also had men using such divorce flogged.

The Supreme Court described it as manifestly arbitrary and said that it allows a man to break down a marriage whimsically and capriciously. The main question arises in our mind, what is triple talaq? So first we should know about triple talaq. There are three forms of talaq in Muslim law Ahsan, Hasan and Talaq-e-biddat (triple talaq). Both Ahsan and Hasan are revocable. Biddat is pronouncing divorce in one go by the husband is revocable. Biddat is considerd as sinful, but permissible in Islamic law. In many countries Triple Talaq is already banned like Indonesia, Iraq, Turkey, Bangladesh, Iran, Algeria, UAE, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Egypt, Pakistan, etc.

Country have long discussion on the removal of triple talaq practice but it came in issue when Supreme Court questioned whether Muslim personal law practices of marriage and divorce reduces women to mere chattels. In a rare move, it registered a Suo motu  it registered PIL titled Muslim Women’s fro equality to examine whether arbitrary divorce, polygamy and nikah halala (where muslim divorcee marries a man and divorces him to get re-married to her former husband) it clearly violate the women’s dignity.

The court rued missing the opportunity to address the question of gender inequality in both the cases Shah Bano and Daniel Latifi cases. In the Shah Bano case, the court merely goaded the government to frame the uniform civil code In Daniel Latifi case, it upheld the right of Muslim women to maintenance till re-marriage. A five-judge constitution bench of the supreme court ruled that the instant triple talaq is unconstitutional and against the teachings of Islam. The bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) J S Khehar ruled against the practice by a majority of 3:2.

After the penalizing the triple talaq people are divided to support of this law and also some people who against the law. According to the people who are with this law they argued that practice of triple talaq was against the rights of equality and women empowerment, it dominates men over women, it gave the right to arbitrarily divorce their wives without any valid reason, as we know new technology given birth to new modes of triple talaq (WhatsApp, Facebook, messages, email etc.), it goes against the Article 14 (right to equality) and also article 15(1) which states that there shall be no discrimination against any citizen on the basis gender, race, etc. and this kind of talaq is biased against the interests of women.

Also there are many people who argued against the Bill not triple talaq expulsion they argued that why are you sending jail for three years, why government criminalizing triple talaq, since the wife is not divorced, she can’t remarry until her husband is in jail and a proper divorce is obtained, just like the dowry bill it will be a great instrument for misuse while rarely serving the real victims.

Eventually, in my view there is no finish line of this debate that whether the law made on triple talaq will display the positive or negative environment in Muslims family because triple talaq is often known for its controversies through the world and it is noted that the custom is banned in the many other Muslim majority countries. There are many instances where Muslim clerics flout the supreme court ban on triple talaq and men are giving unilaterally talaq by other names. From this we really aware that there is much difficulty to enforce the laws which are connected with the religion and for government this will be challenging task to enforce and to make the mind of Muslim clerics. Any form of divorce will continue to exist with some other name till the Muslim clergy does not change in its nature.

Also Read – Muta Marriage Under The Muslim Law

This article is authored by Arpit Pandey, student of B.A. LL.B (Hons.) at ICFAI Foundation Of Higher Education (IFHE) University

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