All India Muslim Personal Law Board to move court against government's instant triple talaq ordinance

LUCKNOW: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) will move court if the ordinance on instant triple talaq approved by the union government on Wednesday, makes the practice a punishable offence.


Secretary of the board and its spokesperson, Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani told TOI that the government approving an ordinance when it was unable to get the proposed Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage), Bill, 2017, is completely 'undemocratic'.

"The board's legal committee will go through the ordinance clause by clause and if it is the same as the anti-women bill that AIMPLB and Muslim women across the country had protested, we will move court. The board's working committee had already decided that if the government takes the ordinance root, we will challenge it in court," said Maulana Rahmani.

He further added, "It is a completely undemocratic way and if the government wanted to get it done it should have done so by getting the bill passed in the monsoon session of the Parliament which culminated recently or would have taken it to the Parliament's winter session."

Executive committee member of AIMPLB, Dr Asma Zehra also said, "This ordinance is the government's failure. No select committee, no discussion in

Rajya Sabha

, no expert opinion. It is not development. It won't give any security to Muslim women and is totally against values of

democracy

."

Member of the board and Imam of biggest Eidgah in the city, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali also reacted sharply to the union government criminalizing instant triple talaq by way of an ordinance.

He said, "Instant triple talaq was struck down by the Supreme Court (SC) making it invalid. But it did not ask for its criminalisation. In any democratic setup, the Parliament is the authority to make laws but the government's bill was not passed in the Rajya Sabha and yet the ordinance has been brought. This is against the basic principles of democracy."

Farangi Mahli added, "All opposition parties and Muslim organisations had asked for the bill to be sent to the Parliament's select committee and base the law, if any, on decisions thus taken but all of that was ignored. Crores of Muslim women across the country had protested the anti-women clauses but their demanded was blatantly ignored by the government."

The AIMPLB had been rejecting the central government's instant triple talaq bill calling it anti-women from the beginning. In December last year, an emergency meeting of the Board was called up at Lucknow's

Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama

after which a formal letter to the Prime Minister was also sent by the Board asking him to review the bill in consultation with AIMPLB, senior clerics and organisations working for women.

The board had expressed its concerns for the bill criminalizing instant triple talaq claiming that since the Supreme Court had made such instant triple talaq invalid, it ceased to exist and hence should not call for criminalisation.

The Board had also questioned the three-year jail term proposed in the bill on divorcing husband calling it a contradiction to the court's judgment of providing for wife's maintenance even when in jail. The provision of third-party complaint leading to a case of instant triple talaq to be registered and non involving women's organisation in the process of the bill's formulation was also AIMPLB's contention.