A non-governmental organisation and two people have filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging the provisions of the recently-passed triple talaq ordinance, PTI reported on Monday. Triple talaq is the practice of divorcing by uttering talaq thrice.
The Union Cabinet last week approved the ordinance making the practice a punishable offence. The government took the decision after failing to get Parliament to pass legislation on the matter.
The petition was moved on September 21 by former municipal councillor and social worker Masood Ansari, NGO Rising Voice Foundation and advocate Devendra Mishra. A division bench of the High Court is likely to consider it on Friday. The petition claimed that the ordinance’s provisions are “illegal, null, void, unreasonable and arbitrary”.
“The very construction of the ordinance shows that it selectively targets Muslim men,” said the petitioners’ lawyer Tanveer Nizam. “The provisions of the ordinance are violative of fundamental rights of Muslim men.”
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while announcing the ordinance, said the ordinance’s core component is that an offence will be cognisable only when a first information report is filed by a woman or her close relations by blood or marriage. He added that the offence can be compromised only at the insistence of the wife “upon appropriate terms and conditions as determined by the magistrate”, and bail can be granted only after hearing the wife. The woman will get the custody of a minor child, if any, and she will be entitled to a maintenance determined by the magistrate for herself and the child.
The ordinance has similar provisions as The Muslim Women Protection of Rights in Marriage Act that the Lok Sabha cleared in December. The bill criminalised the practice of divorcing by uttering the word “talaq” thrice in any form – spoken, in writing, or over electronic communication. It also proposed a three-year jail term for those guilty of violating the law.
However, the bill faced stiff resistance in the Rajya Sabha. Several Opposition lawmakers called for it to be sent to a select committee for close scrutiny. Opposition parties led by the Congress had concerns about the jail term the bill proposed, and had asked the government who would provide for the family if the husband is imprisoned. The parties wanted the government to include in the legislation provisions for financial aid to Muslim women and also suggested government aid.
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