The ‘Triple Talaq Bill’ has been passed by the Parliament on declaration by Rajya Sabha Chairman Shri Venkaiah Naidu of the Bill receiving 99 ‘yes’ votes as against ‘84’ no votes after a debate stretching five hours on 30^th July. The Lok Sabha has already passed the Bill on 25^th July.

AIADMK, BSP, JD(U), TRS, and TDP abstained from voting.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2019 now awaits the President’s assent before it gets notified in the Official Gazette.

The Bill makes instant triple talaq a cognizable offence. The provision was vehemently opposed but the Law Minister stayed firm, saying when other matrimonial wrongs are penalized, there is no ground of opposition to criminalization of triple talaq.

It has incorporated all amendments suggested to it in the previous Lok Sabha’s winter session when the Bill was first tabled.

The Bill stands for women empowerment and gender equality, according to Union Minister for Minority Affairs, Mukhthar Abbas Naqvi.

AIADMK’s A Navaneethakrishnan’s suggestion of the provisions of the Bill being revisited by a select committee was discarded.

Leader of opposition, Ghulam Nabi Azad, said the Bill has set on a path to criminalize a civil wrong. Several parliamentarians have called the triple talaq issue a mere ‘matrimonial dispute’.

Nevertheless, the Bill stands passed. A victim wife in a case of triple talaq, or her close blood relatives can file a complaint under this new law. The offence will be compoundable at the instance of the wife on such terms and conditions as deemed fit by the Magistrate. The offence is also bailable, and Magistrate can grant bail, but only after hearing the wife. The Bill provides for grant of custody of the minor child to the wife, and also maintenance suitably determined by the Magistrate.

Read the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 below:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1q4TtbSSmbTCxs6zZOx-hmdo4tJePvSui

–India Legal Bureau

Also Read: Triple Talaq Bill tabled in Rajya Sabha, Union Law Minister Prasad says it should not be seen thorough a political prism

The Triple Talaq bill was tabled in Rajya Sabha today with Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad saying that the Bill was crucial in safeguarding justice for Muslim women and should not be seen through a political perspective.

Prasad urged the Rajya Sabha members to support the passage of The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 saying that the practice was being continued despite apex court banning it through its judgment.

“This subject should not be seen through a political prism or votebank politics. This is a question of humanity. This is for ensuring justice to women, dignity and empowerment to women and to ensure gender dignity and equality,” he said.

Prasad emphasized on the number of Triple Talaq cases which have come into the light and said that as many as 574 cases has been reported after the Supreme Court judgment.

“As many as 101 cases have come into the light after the last ordinance criminalising the practice. The judgement has come, but no action on triple talaq has been taken. That is why we have brought this law, because the law is a deterrence,” the Minister said.

Prasad further added that instant Triple Talaq has been banned by more than 20 Islamic countries. But the practice has not been banned in secular India due to one reason or the other.

The Congress MP Amee Yagnik countered the Bill and said: “How are you going to provide support to the woman seeking assistance. How are you going to take care of the children who don’t even know why their parents are fighting in court? Do you have provisions of providing psychological counseling to those children?”

The Bill proposes to make the triple talaq as cognizable offence. It also provides allowance to victim women and their dependent children. The offence is made compoundable with the permission of the Magistrate at the instance of the married Muslim woman upon whom talaq is pronounced.

The opposition’s main problem lies with the penal provision of three years for a Muslim man practising triple talaq. The Bill also says the accused can get bail only from the magistrate before the trial starts, provided his wife concurs.

—India Legal Bureau

Senior advocate Raju Ramachandran tells court the triple talaq ordinance is a fraud on the Constitution, provisions not tenable in law

The Supreme Court, on Friday (November 2), refused to entertain a petition challenging the Centre’s ordinance that criminalized triple talaq and laid down a three-year jail term for the erring Muslim husband.

Noting that it did not find it necessary to interfere in the matter or go into its merits, the top court’s bench led by Chief Justice Ranajn Gogoi, allowed senior advocate Raju Ramachandran to withdraw the petition moved by the Samastha Kerala Jamiat Ulema.

Ramachandran told the bench that the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, promulgated on September 19, was a “fraud on the Constitution” and that prosecutions under it “are not tenable in law.”

The petitioners had, in their plea, argued that the ordinance “is violative of Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution and, accordingly, requires to be struck down”. The petition also said that ordinance is “unconstitutional for failing to satisfy the mandatory requirements of Article 123 of the Constitution”.  Article 123 enables promulgation of ordinances only in instances requiring “immediate action”. “The absence of emergent reasons negates any invocation of the provision,” it stated.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, was signed by President Ram Nath Kovind on September 19, hours after it was approved at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad had said there was an “overpowering urgency” and a “compelling necessity” to bring the ordinance as the practice continued unabated despite the Supreme Court order in 2017.

The Supreme Court in August 2017 had set aside the practice of instant triple talaq or talaq-e-biddat in a landmark 3-2 verdict.

— India Legal Bureau

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha last week was introduced in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday amid Opposition protests

With just two days left for the conclusion of the winter session of Parliament, the fate of the Centre’s controversial Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill that seeks to make instant triple talaq a non-bailable offence punishable with a three year jail term now hangs in balance.

The Bill that was passed by the Lok Sabha last week through a voice vote was introduced in the Rajya Sabha for consideration and passing by Union minister for Law and Justice on Wednesday. However, protests by Opposition members led by the Congress party, which demanded that the Bill be referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee for further discussions, forced Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien to adjourn the House proceedings till Thursday morning.

It now remains to be seen whether, with just two sittings of Parliament’s winter session left, the Rajya Sabha will be able to discuss and pass the contentious draft legislation or whether it would, as per the demand of the Opposition, be sent for consideration of a select committee, thereby stalling its enactment for at least another three months.

That the passage of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, where the Centre is in a minority, will be no easy task had been clear even before the draft legislation was passed by the Lower House of Parliament. Opposition parties like the Congress, Samajwadi Party, Biju Janata Dal, Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and DMK, which had failed to put up any resistance to the Bill’s passage in the Lok Sabha, knowing well that it would be rendered ineffective owing to the Centre’s brute majority in the Lower House, had closed in ranks to stall the draft legislation’s passage in the Rajya Sabha.

On Wednesday, a day which had already seen much uproar in both Houses of Parliament owing to the caste violence in Maharashtra in the backdrop of the anti-Dalit atrocities in Pune districts Bhima Koregaon, the Opposition struck with all its might against the Centre. Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s assertion that the Opposition was raking up the issue of Dalit protests only to stall the passage of the anti-triple talaq legislation only made matters worse.

Soon after Prasad rose in the Rajya Sabha to introduce the Bill, Congress leader Anand Sharma got up to move a resolution seeking to refer the draft legislation to a select committee of Parliament. Sharma’s move – supported by SP’s Naresh Agarwal and Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien – elicited a sharp response from Leader of the House and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who along with other MPs from the Treasury Benches, slammed the Congress for “violating parliamentary norms.

Jaitley argued that the Congress had not given prior notice about its resolution for referring the Bill to a select committee and that the motion moved by Sharma should, thus, not be entertained by the Chair. The submission by the Leader of the House immediately triggered a slanging match between BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad, Smriti Irani and others members and the combined Opposition brigade of Congress’ Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Kapil Sibal, Trinamool’s Derek O’Brien, SP’s Naresh Agarwal to name a few.

As it became clear that the Opposition was in no mood to relent and decibels touched a deafening high, Rajya Sabha deputy chairman Kurien was forced to adjourn the proceedings till 11 am on Thursday.