The Allahabad High Court has come down heavily on the practice of “triple talaq”, saying this form of “instant divorce” is “cruel” and “most demeaning”, which “impedes and drags India from becoming a nation.”
“Muslim law, as applied in India, has taken a course contrary to the spirit of what the Prophet or the Holy Quran laid down and the same misconception vitiates the law dealing with the wife’s right to divorce”, a single judge Bench of Justice Suneet Kumar said.
The court observed that “divorce is permissible in Islam only in case of extreme emergency. When all efforts for effecting a reconciliation have failed, the parties may proceed to a dissolution of marriage by Talaq or by Khola.”
Personal laws of any community cannot claim supremacy over the rights granted to individuals by the Constitution, the Bench said.
The observations were made while dismissing the writ of an elderly Muslim man who was seeking protection for himself and his second wife, half his age.
The man submitted in the court that he had divorced his first wife through the custom of "triple talaq" and now felt threatened by relatives of his second wife and his own family.
"The instant divorce [triple talaq] though has been deprecated and not followed by all sects of Muslim community in the country, however, is a cruel and the most demeaning form of divorce practised by the Muslim community at large. Women cannot remain at the mercy of the patriarchal setup held under the clutches of sundry clerics having their own interpretation of the holy Quran. Personal laws of any community cannot claim supremacy over the rights granted to individuals by the Constitution," the court said.
Justice Kumar said the matter was in the Supreme Court. "I would not like to say anything further for the reason that the Supreme Court is seized with the matter."
The arbitrary use of "triple talaq" by Muslim men was not in sync with Islamic law, he said.
"The judicial conscience is disturbed at this monstrosity. The first wife has to live life for no fault of her but for the reason that her husband got attracted to a lady half of her age which is the reason for being divorced. The view that the Muslim husband enjoys an arbitrary, unilateral power to inflict evil instant divorce does not accord with Islamic injunctions," he said.
"It is a popular fallacy that a Muslim male enjoys, under the Quranic Law, unbridled authority to liquidate the marriage," he said.
(With inputs from PTI)
