While quashing the rape charges against an Accounts professional from Bangalore-based IT Company, Delhi High Court has said that the triple ‘talaq’ pronounced by the husband in anger or not communicated to the wife within the stipulated period would not be valid.

Justice B D Ahmed said, “If a talaq is pronounced in extreme anger where the husband has lost control of himself it would not be effective or valid. And if the pronouncement is not communicated to the wife, who is not present on the spot, would also not take effect.”

“The purported talaq of October 2005 was invalid as the essential ingredients of pronouncement, communication and attempt at reconciliation are absent. The petitioner and the complainant continued as husband and wife during the relevant period ( i.e., 13.04.2006 to 19.04.2006),” said the judgement while quashing the criminal complaint of  rape filed by Aisha Anjum against her estranged husband Masroor Ahmed in Preet Vihar police station here.

The court held that since the couples divorce was invalid, the husband's physical relationship with his legally wedded wife, subsequent to his pronouncement of a talaq, would not amount to rape.

Aisha had filed an FIR under the Muslim Personal Law with the police alleging that her husband Masroor Ahmed, an accountant working with an IT company in Bangalore,   committed rape of her between April 13-19, 2006, the period she was in her matrimonial home, even though he had pronounced triple talaq in her absence in October 2005.

“It (triple talaq ) is an innovation which may have served a purpose at a particular point of time in history but, if it is rooted out such a move would not be contrary to any basic tenets of Islam or the Quran or any ruling of the Prophet Muhammad,” said Justice Ahmed.

Justice Ahmed said the "harsh abruptness" of triple talaq has brought about extreme misery to women and even the men who are left with no chance to undo the wrong or any scope to bring about a reconciliation.
The judgement would have wider ramifications in cases of triple talaq pronounced by husbands in anger and inebriated state in many parts of the country. 

Aisha alleged that due to harassment for more dowry, she had left her matrimonial home in Old Delhi and was staying in her matrimonial home with her daughter during October 2006.

Ahmed, who works in Bangalore , reached Delhi in her absence and when he came to know about the situation had pronounced triple talaq in her absence and the pronouncement had never been communicated to her. She came to know about the talaq from her brother-in-law who was present on the spot at the time of pronouncement.