Michael Vaz
To uphold the self-esteem of the Muslim women and to ensure them equality before law and the right to live with dignity as enshrined in the Constitution, the NDA government had initiated that the practice of instant triple talaq practised by some rapacious men of the community be brought to a nullity.
Let us recollect that the matter was debated at depth in the Supreme Court on a bunch of petitions filed therein to criminalise the unethical practice and relieve the Muslim women from the agony of living in perpetuity with the Damocles’ sword hanging over their heads of getting divorced just by uttering the word ‘talaq’ thrice and which of late was even effected through social media. A year ago the Supreme Court had ruled that the archaic practice is unconstitutional, void and illegal as it violates the fundamental rights of Muslim women. The top court made a striking observation that when a number of Islamic countries have criminalised the practice what is the difficulty for a democratic country like India to do likewise.
However, in the absence of any penal law the practice continued with impunity. The government, determined to safeguard the Muslim women, introduced a bill in the Lok Sabha criminalising the practice with imprisonment for three years, which was passed without hurdles as the NDA has majority in the lower house. However when it was placed in the Rajya Sabha, all sanity was lost, and the opposition with the twin purpose of challenging the Modi government and appeasing the Muslim men in a bid to strengthen the vote bank, opposed the bill even going to the extent of arguing that if the man who is the breadwinner is jailed then who will support the family. It is a disgrace that they failed to apply the same logic to other crimes, making men immune to imprisonment, on the plea of being the supporters of the family. Even in the monsoon session of Parliament no consensus could be reached and the bill was confined to cold storage.
The cabinet was left with no option than to present an ordinance to the President which has been signed by him on Wednesday night. A provision has been made that the complaint can be filed only by the aggrieved wife or her blood relations or those related through marriage and that the husband can be granted bail but only after hearing the wife. Irrefutably, ordinance should be the last resort in parliamentary democracy but paying in the same coin is also the best bet.
