New Delhi, Dec 28: The Lok Sabha Thursday passed a bill that criminalises instant divorce with three years of imprisonment for Muslim husbands after the government rejected an overwhelming demand from the Opposition to refer the legislation to a Parliamentary standing committee for detailed consideration.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 was passed by a voice vote after rejecting a resolution moved by Revolutionary Socialist Party member NK Premachandran that the legislation be circulated for public opinion.
Various amendments moved by opposition members, including Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) and Premachandran, were negatived in divisions.
The government’s determination to get the Bill passed could be gauged from the fact that it was introduced in the morning and taken up for consideration in the afternoon by suspending relevant rules and then passed in the evening by sitting late beyond the scheduled close of the House.
Law and Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who introduced the bill and later piloted it in the Lok Sabha, said history was being created today.
He said the issue was not of religion or faith but of “gender justice and gender equality” and appealed to all the parties to rise above political considerations and politics of votebank. “Women are seeing that justice will be done to them. Let us speak in one voice that we are for gender justice and gender equity and pass the Bill unanimously,” Prasad said, winding up the discussion.
He said instances of instant triple talaq continue despite the Supreme Court ruling it as unconstitutional in August this year. The bill seeks to declare pronouncement of talaq-e-biddat (three pronouncements of talaq at one go) by Muslim husbands void and illegal in view of the Supreme Court verdict.
Prasad said while Justice Rohington Nariman and UU Lalit held in their judgment in August that instant divorce was unconstitutional and the government should look at bringing a law, Justice Kurian Joseph had observed that what is a sin in Islamic laws cannot be legal.
The Minister saw no justification in the demand for referring the Bill to a standing committee saying the affected Muslim women were crying for justice and were fully backing it. He said there was contradiction in members wanting it to be referred to a standing committee and some arguing why it was not brought earlier.
The Bill makes the act of pronouncing talaq-e-biddat punishable offence. There is provision for subsistence allowance from the husband for the livelihood and daily supporting needs of the wife as also of the dependent children. The wife would also be entitled to the custody of minor children.
Intervening in the debate, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said time was now ripe for the passage of the legislation in the interest of Muslim women. He recalled an instance of a British journalist interviewing the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru after the passage of the Hindu code Bill when she asked when would the government introduce reforms in Muslim laws.
Nehru was not opposed to reforms of Muslim personal laws but merely said the time was not opportune then, Akbar said. “That time has come now.”
Though Opposition members, including from the Congress, supported the legislation, they wanted it to be referred to a parliamentary committee so that several lacunae can be removed and the provisions strengthened in favour of Muslim women. The law must ensure that subsistence allowance and maintenance to the women and the children was not stopped, they felt.
Some felt that the BJP government was in a haste to pass the Bill not because of its concern for Muslim women but because it sees this as a first step towards bringing in a uniform civil code. They wanted the measure to be given up immediately.
During the debate, BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi accused the Congress of appeasing Muslims and said there is a need for codification of Muslim personal laws in the country.
“They (Congress) always did appeasement politics for which the country has paid for 30 years and today we have this chance. If we lose this chance today we will not have another chance.,” she said.
“Codification of Islamic law is needed in this country. No one knows what is Sharia, Talaq-e-Biddat… No one knows the difference,” she added.
Draft bill can be misused, Satpathy tells LS
New Delhi, Dec 28: BJD Chief Whip in the Lok Sabha Tathagata Satpathy Thursday told the Lok Sabha that the Bill relating to criminalising triple talaq could have adverse affects, as the provisions in it could be misused as in the case of the defamation law.
Satpathy was addressing the Lower House on behalf of his party when the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 was tabled in the House. In his speech, Satpathy said, “When we are talking about bringing criminality angle we should understand that this is a civil matter. When you are refusing a person living with a partner to either live with the person or go to prison, the results could be brutal.”
He further said, “When you bring a criminal aspect in a civil issue, you are bringing into a situation where the government machineries will not have any control. There could be happenings which could be beyond the control of government machineries, because like the defamation Act the criminal provisions in the Bill could be misused”.
Satpathy also questioned the Union government for not bringing an ordinance on the matter. He said, “Out of some 300 such marriage annulments, 100 annulments occurred after the SC order. If the government can bring an ordinance to declare bamboo a grass and not tree, it could also have passed an ordinance in this regard. But this has no economic value; this is only a political twist to the matter.”
The BJD MP also said that when talking about regulation of talaq laws in other countries, the House should also see the precise regulations these countries did. “They have not banned. I am not saying we should follow some dark norms from other countries,” he said. (IANS/PNN)
