Triple talaq bill not aimed at victimising any community: Ravi Shankar Prasad

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Thursday passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, with a thumping majority and also voted out the amendments moved by some opposition parties. The Congress, AIADMK, Trinamool and RJD staged a walkout after their demands were rejected. Dismissing the opposition demand for referring the bill to a joint select committee of Parliament, Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the bill was not aimed at victimising any community and asserted that the “legislation has enough safeguards to prevent its misuse”. The bill now awaits a political test in the Rajya Sabha.

“Opposition’s demand for a joint select committee has possibly only one reason: why it is criminalised?’ When Parliament passed bills calling for harsher punishment for other crimes, why no one said what will happen to the families of culprits,” he said. “Don’t weigh the bill on the scales of politics. The bill is about humanity and justice,” he said.

Prasad pointed out that the Supreme Court had termed the practice “un-Islamic” and “unconstitutional”. He said 477 cases of triple talaq have been reported since January 2017 and cited a case where a professor gave talaq through WhatsApp. Another man gave talaq after his wife attended PM Modi’s rally, the law minister said, adding if this House can pass a bill for capital punishment for rape of girls below age of 12 years, then why not this legislation.


Earlier Union minister Smriti Irani defended the bill and attacked the opposition for criticising it. “The opposition said marriage is a contract between two adults, so I want to tell them that contracts can’t be broken unilaterally,” she said, “If Parliament can enact laws to ban dowry and the practice of Sati, it can also approve the bill to ban triple talaq.” Referring to a verse in the Quran, she said the issue of triple talaq was also dealt by a ‘khalifa’. When Mohd Salim (CPM) wanted her to name the ‘khalifa’ she was referring to, Irani said she could even take the name of Hazrat Sahib, but would want him to chant ‘Hanuman Chalisa’. BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi said: “Our Constitution talks about a uniform civil code and not a uniform religious code.”

Shiv Sena’s Arvind Sawant also supported the bill.