'All legal routes open for instant talaq victims, Bill ensures Muslim women's rights'

NEW DELHI: Even as the Opposition gets ready to battle treasury benches over the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha, the government is clear that the proposed law offers all avenues of justice redressal to Muslim women subjected to instant divorce.

Senior officials who did not want to be quoted told ET that during internal, high-level discussions on the triple talaq bill, all stakeholders were satisfied that the proposed law doesn’t stop Muslim women from availing rights available to them under any other law.

This is a crucial point because critics of the bill have argued it doesn’t sufficiently address the question of women’s rights and livelihood issues.


The legislative department of the law ministry, during internal discussions prior to tabling the ‘Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017’, had clarified in response to the law ministry’s department of justice that the proposed law isn’t restrictive when it comes to Muslim women’s rights.

The department of justice had observed that the “possibility of resolution of matrimonial disputes through conciliation as per the extant provisions of the Family Courts Act, 1984, if found legally tenable for Muslim women too, could be explored”.

The legislative department had clarified: “The proposed Bill is to protect the rights of married Muslim women and to prohibit divorce by pronouncing talaq-e-biddat by their husbands. Rights available to her under any other law are not barred”.

Internal discussions saw participation and concurrence by major ministries as well as a dozen state governments.

The bill makes grant of instant talaq a cognisable and a non-bailable offence. Any Muslim woman subjected to instant talaq can approach a Court of Magistrate and seek redressal.

The Bill also says that aggrieved Muslim women can seek subsistence allowance, maintenance for herself and her dependent children. In August last year, the Supreme Court had declared the practice of instant talaq illegal.

Following complaints of grant of instant talaq even after the apex court verdict, the Modi government had formed a high-level committee comprising home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and two ministers of state to look into the matter.