A petition was filed in the Supreme Court on Friday challenging the constitutional validity of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, which criminalises triple talaq among Muslims and attracts a jail term up to three years for the husband.
The petition, moved by Samastha Kerala Jamiathul Ulema, a Kerala-based organisation of the Sunni Muslim scholars and clerics, sought that the Act be declared unconstitutional.
It also said that a direction should be issued to impose an interim stay on the newly enacted law.
The Act is in violation of various Articles of the Constitution, the petitioner stated, adding that it would create "grave public mischief and may lead to polarisation and disharmony in society".
The intent behind the Ordinance is not the abolition of Triple Talaq, but the punishment of Muslim husbands submitted the petition.
If the motive was to protect a Muslim wife in an unhappy marriage, no reasonable person can believe that the means to ensure it is by putting an errant husband in jail for 3 years and create a non-bailable offence for merely saying "talaq talaq talaq", it added.
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The Act is manifestly "arbitrary and discriminatory, unfair and unreasonable" and it creates an offence and causes a deprivation of liberty without justification, the petition submitted.
This came a day after the triple talaq legislation became an Act following presidential assent.
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