Lok Sabha passes triple talaq Bill; Congress and other parties go along

This law is for women's rights and justice and not regarding any prayer, ritual or religion, said law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad

After the Lok Sabha passed the triple talaq Bill on Thursday, the Narendra Modi government indicated it would be amenable to incorporating some of the amendments that the Opposition suggested when the bill comes up for discussion in the Rajya Sabha. The government doesn't have a majority in the Rajya Sabha, and a combined Opposition can force the bill be sent to a House Select Committee for further study.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, which prohibits divorce by pronouncing instant talaq, or talaq-e-biddat, was passed with most of the leading parties in the Opposition, including the Congress, voting in favour of the Bill, but with caveats.

The bill allows the victim to approach a magistrate to seek "subsistence allowance" for herself and minor children. All kinds of instant triple talaq - spoken, in writing or by electronic means, such email, text message or WhatsApp - would be illegal and void.

Initiating the discussion on Thursday afternoon, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the bill will ensure gender justice and equality and termed it "historic". He said the government has brought in the bill on the suggestion of the Supreme Court, which had banned instant triple talaq in August.

Prasad said 300 instances of triple talaq have come to light in 2017 itself, including 100 after the Supreme Court order. He said a host of Islamic nations have legal provisions to "regulate" instant triple talaq, and Pakistan even has penal provisions for husbands.

Several Opposition members pointed at the contradictions in the bill, and slammed it for being poorly drafted. Opposition members, including of the Congress and Left parties, criticised the government for not consulting stakeholders and for "draconian" penal provision of imprisonment of three years.

Members said the government needed to dispel the perception of harbouring "ulterior motives" in pushing through the Bill. They said the bill's provisions could further alienate the Muslim community from the mainstream. Opposition members recommended the Bill be sent to a parliamentary standing committee in the interest of an improved legislation.

Muslim women celebrating the introduction of triple 'talaq' bill in the Lok Sabha, in Lucknow (Photo: PTI)

The Congress, the Left, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and other leading parties supported the bill. The Rashtriya Janata Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, All India Muslim League and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) opposed the Bill.

Conspicuously, none from the Trinamool Congress participated in the discussion. "It is the party's decision," Trinamool Lok Sabha member Saugata Roy said, refusing to elaborate. Party sources said the decision had to do with the party's electoral compulsions in West Bengal.

Congress's MP Sushmita Dev said her party supported the bill, but criticised the government's attempt to make divorce, which is a civil matter, into a criminal offence. She said all doors for reconciliation in a marriage would shut once the husband goes to jail.

Dev also demanded the government put in place a corpus to provide for subsistence allowance that the bill mentions, since it was unrealistic to expect a husband in jail to fend for his family. Dev said the bill would further alienate the Muslim community and lead to victimisation of Muslim men. Members also pointed out bringing in a legislation was redundant as the Supreme Court, with its majority judgement, has already put in place the law that bans triple talaq.

NCP's Supriya Sule said the bill's penal provisions were unfortunate at a time when the Supreme Court has tried to put a stop to "automatic arrest" in dowry harassment cases under IPC section 498A. She said the government should not isolate a single community, and instead let family courts intervene to send estranged couples for counselling.
 

AIMIM's Asaduddin Owaisi said the bill was part of the government's design to take away all personal laws of the Muslims, which are granted to minorities under Article 21 of the Constitution. Owaisi said none of the Muslim nations that have banned instant talaq have penal provisions. He accused the government of "trying to demonise the entire Muslim community".

Whether in cases of child marriage, dowry or abandonment of women, Owaisi said social laws have not succeeded in solving social problems. He said the government had "vested interest" in not getting a law for protection of women abandoned by their husbands. He said it was ironical for the BJP to speak of gender justice for Muslim women when there was not a single Muslim woman MP among its ranks.

BJP's M J Akbar said there could be criticism of the bill in its present shape, but the House should remember the saying "never destroy the good in search of the ideal". He said the bill would end the "terror" that Muslim men exercise over their women by using the threat of talaq.

BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi criticised the Congress for its "appeasement politics" in the Shah Bano case, and said Muslim women would get to see that its "their brother" Prime Minister Narendra Modi who is standing by them in their battle against injustice.