The Supreme Court of India is set to reevaluate the 2019 law criminalizing instant Triple Talaq following a petition challenging its impact on men’s rights. The court will consolidate this with earlier cases filed by Muslim organizations, questioning the law’s constitutionality.
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The Supreme Court of India has decided to consolidate a new petition challenging the 2019 legislation against instant Triple Talaq with existing cases. This law, known as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, has sparked debate for making the practice of instant divorce, or Triple Talaq, a criminal offense punishable by up to three years in prison.
The decision was made by a bench led by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, alongside Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, who have agreed to hear the plea in conjunction with other petitions previously brought to the court’s attention in 2019.
The recent plea was submitted by Amir Rashadi Madani, hailing from Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, who questions the law’s impact on the rights of men. During a succinct hearing, Chief Justice Chandrachud inquired about the specific ways in which the law infringes upon men’s rights.
Representing Madani, the counsel argued that the Act criminalizes the act of instant Triple Talaq and subjects men to punishment, highlighting a contradiction within the law itself. Specifically, Section 3 of the Act deems Triple Talaq illegal, while Section 4 prescribes a three-year imprisonment and a fine for husbands who engage in this practice.
The Supreme Court has also decided to tag this new plea with earlier ones filed by two Muslim organizations, Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind and ‘Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema’, a group of Sunni Muslim scholars and clerics based in Kerala.
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These organizations have previously petitioned the court to declare the law unconstitutional, arguing that it unfairly criminalizes a divorce practice specific to one religion, thereby discriminating against Muslims in violation of Article 15 of the Indian Constitution, which prohibits discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth.
Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind has pointed out that since the act of Triple Talaq had already been deemed “void and illegal,” there was no necessity for this law. Their petition states,
“However, the impugned Act criminalizes the act of pronouncement of talaq by a Muslim husband and makes it a cognizable offence, without appreciating that such pronouncement had already been declared unconstitutional and amounted to nullity in the eyes of law.”
They further criticized the provision for punishment as “an ill-conceived provision which imposes excessive and disproportionate punishment.”
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On August 23, 2019, the Supreme Court initially agreed to scrutinize the validity of the Act. The debate revolves around whether the law’s method of criminalizing Triple Talaq is a just and suitable way to safeguard the rights of Muslim women, or if it unfairly singles out Muslim men, leading to an unequal treatment of divorce practices among various religious communities.
