Muslim Women Personal Law Board set to take triple talaq to SC

The All India Muslim Women Personal Law Board (AIMWPLB) is gearing up to file a petition in Supreme Court against triple talaq or talaq over email, Whatsapp and call.

The triple talaq is a very regressive and highly patriarchal way of divorcing a partner in the Muslim community wherein a man just needs to pronounce the term talaq thrice to divorce his wife. This power is only given to men in Islam and not women as they cannot exercise triple talaq.

“We will put up a petition asking for triple talaq in its present form to be banned and there should be an element of counselling. Lots of issues can be solved by counselling. Often, when a man gives talaq in a fit of rage but regrets it afterwards, the couple has no option of going back because the maulana says divorce has happened. We want that to change. Neither should talaq given over phone, by post or SMS be recognised,” Shaista Amber, president of the AIMWPLB, told Indian Express.

Besides its stand on triple talaq, the board has also rejected the Uniform Civil Code proposal. If UCC is passed in India, then all religions will be governed under the same rules and regulations mentioned in the Constitution. Currently, all religions have their personal law boards and can have a choice between following the personal law or the Constitution.

Amber maintained that the Quran proposes that a man must consult his wife before giving her talaq and that there must be reconciliation between partners, otherwise the practice looms like a dagger on the woman’s head.

The Muslim women’s personal law board has also rejected the idea of ‘nikaah halala’, which mandates that a woman who has been divorced through triple talaq, will have to remarry to another man and have sex with her new husband if reconciliation has to happen with her ex-husband. However, The board favours ‘khula’, the category of divorce given by the wife to husband wherein she has to return all her husband’s wedding gifts.

In triple talaq, the wife gets a mehr, some amount of cash and gifts from her husband while in khula, she is not eligible to demand mehr from her husband.

Picture credit- TOI