The age-old debate of whether the triple-talaq system in Indian Muslim personal law provides any safeguard for women in arbitrary divorce reached a new height recently as the Indian Supreme Court issued a suo moto ruling to test the legal validity of the system, resulted in mixed reactions from different quarters of the country’s Muslim community.
The most frustrated reaction came from All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the supreme authority of protecting and overseeing continued applicability of Muslim personal law in India.
Resisting the ruling, the AIMPLB has said that the country’s top court has no jurisdiction to undertake the exercise as the community’s personal law was based on the Qur’an and not on a law enacted by Indian parliament, reports Times of India.
“Mohammedan law (common term for Muslim Personal Law Application Act of 1937) is founded on the Holy Qur’an and Ahadith of the Prophet of Islam and this cannot fall within the purview of the expression ‘laws in force’, as mentioned in Article 13 of the Constitution.”
The provisions under Article 13 ensure protection of the fundamental rights and consider any law “inconsistent with or in derogation of the fundamental rights” as void.
“The personal law of Muslims has not been passed or made by a legislation,” it said.
“Muslim personal law is a cultural issue, it is inextricably interwoven with the religion of Islam. Thus, it is the issue of freedom of conscience guaranteed under Articles 25 and 26 read with Article 29 of the Constitution,” it said in an affidavit filed in court, quoting a series of the supreme court judgments which apparently ruled that provisions of personal law could not be challenged for violation of fundamental rights.
The board also challenged the utility of a uniform civil code which, it said, was no guarantee of national integrity and solidarity, arguing that a shared faith did not prevent Christian nations engaging in two World Wars.
In a similar vein, the AIMPLB said the Hindu Code Bill had failed to eradicate caste discrimination.
Drawing a line between a law enacted by the legislature and social norms dictated by religion, the board’s counsel Ejaz Maqbool told the Supreme Court.
The 43-year-old organisation said there were periodic noises by a section of society demanding an uniform civil code. “If the SC lays down special rules for Muslim women it will amount to judicial legislation,” it said.
“Is uniform civil code imperative to national unity, integrity and solidarity?” it asked and said if that been so, there would not have been two world wars between armies belonging to the same Christian religion.
Countering the idea of uniform civil code, AIMPLB said the Hindu Code Bill, which was passed in 1956 to bring uniformity in personal law among different sects of Hindus, has failed to achieve integration among different sects of Hindus.
