Talaq Talaq Talaq: instantaneous and irrevocable divorce

Shah Bano, a 62-year-old Muslim mother of five from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was divorced by her husband in 1978. She filed a criminal suit in the Supreme Court of India, in which she won the right to alimony from her husband. However, the Muslim politicians mounted a campaign for the verdict’s nullification. The Indian Parliament reversed the judgment under pressure from Islamic orthodoxy.

After 41 years India has witnessed the victory for all these Muslim women who had been directly or indirectly having been suffered the most in the name of triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat or talaq-e- mughallazah(irrevocable divorce). The revocation of triple talaq has shown the way for one nation and one law. It has certainly purged the impurities which are marring Indian society for a long time. It is hard to believe such a stigma of society still persists in India. There was a time when movie maker could not put the name of the movie as triple talaq as it can simply jeopardize their marriage status by uttering the words by a husband.

Not only Muslims women, but in the case of Hindus women also, they do face the black horror of bigotry, superstition and social stigma since the dawn of history. Be it female foeticide, child marriage, dowry disgrace, women trafficking or gender inequality in every sphere of life, have ceded the developed India’s goodwill and harmony. According to sources in every hour 4 Indian women lost their modesty and that 117 million girls demographically go “missing” due to sex-selective abortions, as claimed by the United Nations Population Fund.

The historic landmark judgment which has unveiled the curtain of superstition and introduced the new legislation which makes the practice of instant divorce through ‘triple talaq’ among Muslims a punishable offense with 3-year imprisonment. The new law clarifies and invokes  ‘talaq-e-biddat’ or any other similar form of talaq having the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce pronounced by a Muslim husband void and illegal. It makes it illegal to pronounce talaq three times — spoken, written or through SMS or WhatsApp or any other electronic chat — in one sitting.”Any pronouncement of talaq by a Muslim husband upon his wife, by words, either spoken or written or in electronic form or in any other manner whatsoever, shall be void and illegal,” the law says.

The road to glory has not been rosy as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has argued that the Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction to strike down provisions of personal law, organizations calling for reform and Muslim women from various walks of life across the country have urged the court to declare triple talaq and polygamy as “un-Islamic”. In the past, courts have made discordant notes about the immunity enjoyed by personal laws.

In 1951, the Bombay High Court in State of Bombay versus Narasu Appa Mali held that personal law is not ‘law’ under Article 13 of the Indian constitution. The judgment was never challenged in the Supreme Court.  In Ahmedabad Women Action Group versus Union of India, the Supreme Court was asked to consider that unilateral divorce by talaq and polygamy violated Articles 14 and 15.

The Article 13 of Indian Constitution provides a constitutional basis to judicial review since it gives the Supreme Court or High Courts the authority to interpret the pre-constitutional laws and decide whether they are in sync with the principles and values of the present Constitution. A judicial declaration from a Constitution Bench under Article 13 that personal laws are liable to comply with the fundamental rights guaranteed by Constitution would bring religious law, even uncodified practices.

The instantaneous and irrevocable (triple talaq) divorce has certainly addressed such sectarian rules which are earlier hard to be touched and forget of curtailing or wiping out from the society. Time has come now and again to act upon such inadmissible and untouched principles which are definitely cursed for the society in this developing and holy nation.