The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 seeking
to criminalise instant divorce, triple talaq, is set to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday Jan 02,2018
The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday Dec 28,2017 with most of the leading parties in the Opposition, including the Congress, voting in favour, but with caveats.
It was passed after the House rejected a string of amendments moved by various Opposition members.
All the amendments moved by Owaisi, Biju Janata Dal's (BJD) Bhartruhari Mahtab, the Congress' Sushmita Dev and the Communist Party of India's (Marxist) A. Sampath were negated in the Lok Sabha on Thursday Dec 28,2017
If the Bill gets a green signal in the upper house as well, it will be forwarded to the President for signing it into a law.
The Bill, if enacted, will make triple talaq a
criminal offense. It proposes a three-year jail term for a Muslim man
who divorces his wife in any form of spoken, written or by electronic
means such as email, SMS, and WhatsApp
Key Issues Flagged By The Opposition
— When the marriage remains, why send husband to jail: It has been
argued that after the Supreme Court verdict, instant triple talaq will
not have an effect on a marriage. Therefore, the utterance will have no
meaning in law and the marriage shall remain intact. If there is no
impact on the marriage and the utterance is a nullity in itself, which
act is proposed to be criminalised under the bill?
— Need for turning a civil issue into a criminal act: Marriages and divorces are fundamentally civil issues. There are judicial and quasi-judicial forum to adjudicate such discards. Any act of violence also has redressed under the Indian Penal Code and hence, why create a new offence to make the issue of divorce a criminal offence?
— Absence of mechanism for maintenance for wives and minor children: The bill is completely silent on the aspect of providing for subsistence allowance to the aggrieved women and their children when the men may find themselves behind the bar after registration of the case. One of the provisions does talk about subsistence allowance but how will a man provide if he is jailed? Further, the government has not announced that there will be a separate corpus of funds to ascertain maintenance in such cases.
— Shutting possibility of reconciliation: Although the man and the woman will remain legally wedded in spite of the utterance of triple talaq, it would become improbable they will ever reconcile after a criminal case is lodged against the husband. Somebody who has opted to give triple talaq is unlikely to accept the woman back once he is incarcerated because of a complaint by his 'wife'.
Note
The Supreme Court of India (SCI)on August 22,2017 declared the practice of instant triple talaq unconstitutional in a 3-2 majority verdict.
The Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday Dec 28,2017 with most of the leading parties in the Opposition, including the Congress, voting in favour, but with caveats.
It was passed after the House rejected a string of amendments moved by various Opposition members.
All the amendments moved by Owaisi, Biju Janata Dal's (BJD) Bhartruhari Mahtab, the Congress' Sushmita Dev and the Communist Party of India's (Marxist) A. Sampath were negated in the Lok Sabha on Thursday Dec 28,2017
If the Bill gets a green signal in the upper house as well, it will be forwarded to the President for signing it into a law.
Key Issues Flagged By The Opposition
— Need for turning a civil issue into a criminal act: Marriages and divorces are fundamentally civil issues. There are judicial and quasi-judicial forum to adjudicate such discards. Any act of violence also has redressed under the Indian Penal Code and hence, why create a new offence to make the issue of divorce a criminal offence?
— Absence of mechanism for maintenance for wives and minor children: The bill is completely silent on the aspect of providing for subsistence allowance to the aggrieved women and their children when the men may find themselves behind the bar after registration of the case. One of the provisions does talk about subsistence allowance but how will a man provide if he is jailed? Further, the government has not announced that there will be a separate corpus of funds to ascertain maintenance in such cases.
— Shutting possibility of reconciliation: Although the man and the woman will remain legally wedded in spite of the utterance of triple talaq, it would become improbable they will ever reconcile after a criminal case is lodged against the husband. Somebody who has opted to give triple talaq is unlikely to accept the woman back once he is incarcerated because of a complaint by his 'wife'.
Note
The Supreme Court of India (SCI)on August 22,2017 declared the practice of instant triple talaq unconstitutional in a 3-2 majority verdict.
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