Hyderabad: Muslim organisations which have been questioning the legality of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, wonder whether protection of wives can be achieved by incarceration of husbands.
Several Muslim organisations including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Indian Muslims, have opposed the ordinance.
Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, the General Secretary of Islami Fiqh Academy, India and founder member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board, says that criminalisation of triple talaq would increase the number of women deserted by their husbands.
He pointed out that the ordinance was bereft of any logic as it seeks to punish a man for a crime which he has not committed.
“When you are saying that when a man gives triple talaq, it will not come into effect, then why are you are sending him to jail for three years?” the Maulana asks.
He said that excluding isolated cases, there was no documentary evidence to show that the incidence of instant triple talaq had reached such alarming levels as to warrant the hasty promulgation of a Presidential Ordinance.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi said that criminalising triple talaq does not bear out the claim of the NDA government of giving protection to Muslim women. It would only achieve the dream of the government of putting more Muslims in jail.
“If a Muslim man says triple talaq, then how it is valid when the Supreme Court has done away with it (triple talaq)? This law will give handle to Muslim men to further subjugate women. Something which is void cannot be punished as it has no legal force,” Mr Owaisi said.
He said that when homosexuals have been given a choice and married men and women also given freedom to indulge in adultery without the fear of being punished by law, why are Muslims being denied freedom to practice their religion?
He said that Section 2 (b) of the ordinance defines talaq-e-biddat as any form of talaq “having the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce,” but lays down in Section 3 that such a pronouncement in any form whatsoever ‘shall be void and illegal.’
He pointed out that no explanation was offered as to how the pronouncement can be void and have the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce at the same time.
According to the president of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s Telangana and Odisha unit, Hamid Mohammed Khan, the ordinance interferes in the Shariat and also the religious freedom guaranteed under the Constitution.
