Janjivan Bureau / New Delhi : Narendra Modi led government introduced 3rd time triple talaq bill on first day of 17th Lok Sabha on Friday. Government had issued a ordinance in February this year.
Soon after Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tabled the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 in the lower House, opposition members demanded that wider consultations involving the entire spectrum of political parties should take place before its introduction.
The introduction followed opposition by the Congress, Left and AIMIM’s Asadudin Owaisi. After Owaisi sought a division on introduction of the bill, Speaker Om Birla allowed the same and the government won the move by 186 votes to 74.
The Congress was in a spot and had to vote against the bill though it has all along maintained opposition not to the bill per se but to its provisions criminalising triple talaq with a jail term.
Earlier, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor termed the bill harsh and described it as a classic case of “class-specific legislation” arguing for a universal law against desertions by all communities. He said desertions were not exclusive to Muslims so why criminalise Muslims alone.
The Law Minister, however, urged the House to exercise its sovereign right to legislate and leave the matter of interpretation of law to courts.
He said the matter at hand was of women’s rights and dignity and not religion or faith.
Prasad rejected the argument that there was no need for law since the Supreme Court had already declared the practice void.
“Even after the Supreme Court order there have been 224 cases of instant triple talaq. Should we tell the victimised Muslim women to go hang the SC judgment on triple talaq in their houses or should we work to give them justice?”
Prasad said the opposition had learnt no lessons from its Lok Sabha poll defeat.
Opposing the Bill, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen President Asaduddin Owaisi noted that abandoning a wife attracted up to one year jail term under the Hindu Marriage Act and sought to know why Muslim men had to undergo harsher punishment for the same crime.
“The Bill violates Articles 14 (equality) and 15 (against discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, race, sex, etc) of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has declared instant triple talaq void meaning the marriage does not end by such pronouncements. It puts the burden of on the woman while her husband would be in jail for three years for pronouncing instant triple talaq,” he said.
Premachandran said the Bill violated the Constitution”s Article 32 (redressal for violations of fundamental rights) and added that marriage disputes should not be put in the purview of a criminal act.
The first Bill to be introduced in the 17th Lok Sabha, it was introduced to replace an ordinance issued earlier this year by the previous BJP-led NDA government. The Bill, which proposes to make the practice of instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) a penal offence, was introduced in December 2017 but was pending in the Rajya Sabha and had lapsed owing to dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha last month.
The government had promulgated the Ordinance on triple talaq twice — in September 2018 and in January 2019 — as the contentious bill remained pending in the Rajya Sabha.
The Bill makes all declaration of talaq, including in written or electronic form, to be void and illegal. It defines talaq as talaq-e-biddat or any other similar form of talaq as the practice under Muslim personal laws where pronouncement of the word “talaq” thrice in one sitting by a Muslim man to his wife results in an instant and irrevocable divorce.
It makes declaration of such talaq a cognizable offence – where the accused can be arrested without a warrant, and liable to a punishment of three years imprisonment and fine.
The offence, however, will be cognizable only if information relating to the offence is given by the woman against whom talaq has been declared or any person related to her by blood or marriage.
A woman against whom talaq has been declared is entitled to subsistence allowance from her husband for herself and for her dependent children. The amount of the allowance will be determined by a magistrate.
