Supreme Court to examine if instant triple talaq against human rights; to stay off uniform civil code

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court said it would examine whether the practice of instant triple talaq violated Muslim women’s basic human rights and international covenants that India had signed. But it would not wade into the politically contentious issue of having a uniform civil code covering all religious communities in the country.

A bench led by Chief Justice JS Khehar on Tuesday unveiled the contours of a debate, expected during the court’s summer recess beginning May, on the legal validity of the practices of polygamy and instant triple talaq prevalent in the Muslim community.

“We will not be debating uniform civil code,” Justice Khehar said, rejecting an attempt by a lawyer to raise the issue. “We are not interested in facts, only in the propositions of law,” he said. “This could be a human rights issue.”

Several aggrieved Muslim women had challenged these practices as violative of their fundamental rights under the Constitution. The court has yet to hear their pleas.

This will be the court’s second attempt at reforming the Muslim personal law, after an earlier attempt in the Shah Bano case was brought to naught in 1986 by the then Rajiv Gandhi government by enacting a law.

The CJI urged all those who had raised the issue to frame those and get back to the court by Thursday, so that it could fix a date to hear all the arguments.

Possibly, a three- or five-judge bench will hear the matter, which has stirred up quite a hornet’s nest among the Muslim community with bodies such as the All India Muslim Personal Law Board objecting to any court attempts to reform their personal laws.

The Supreme Court in the Shah Bano judgement had ruled in favour of a deserted divorced Muslim woman’s right to maintenance, before it was set aside by the 1986 law.

Family courts have, over the years however ignored that law which caps a Muslim’s woman’s maintenance at measly levels. Instead, courts routinely use a secular provision to award maintenance linked to income of the husband.