While the Muslim women started entering Dargahs on one hand , on the other hand the Supreme Court took on board a petition by a West Bengal-based Muslim woman to declare the practices of ”talaq-e-bidat” (triple tallaq), ”nikah halala” and polygamy under the Muslim personal laws illegal and unconstitutional.The muslim women wanted to do away with the traditional one sided tallaq system.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud tagged the petition filed by Ishrat Jahan, a native of Howrah, with a batch of petitions filed by several Muslim women, women’s rights organisations and the Supreme Court’s own suo motu PIL to consider whether certain practices of marriage and divorce under the Islamic personal laws amount to gender discrimination.
The court issued notice to Ministries of Women and Child Development, Law and Justice, Minority Affairs, the National Commission for Women, police chiefs of Bihar and West Bengal and the woman’s husband, Murtuza Ansari.
On the other hand the Bench refused to aid Ms. Jahan find her four minor children, whom she claims to have been “taken away” by her husband after talaq’.Instead, the Bench asked her to move a habeas corpus petition in the High Court concerned, at one point remarking that “she produced them [children]”.
Jahan, represented by advocate V.K. Biju, contended that personal laws that validate triple talaq as a form of divorce and recognise the practices of ”nikah halala” and polygamy were void and unconstitutional as “they are not only repugnant to the basic dignity of a woman as an individual but also violative of the fundamental rights.”
