AIMPLB moves apex court against Triple Talaq law

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board on Monday filed a plea in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of law which made pronouncement of instant triple talaq as punishable offence with maximum three years jail term.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, also makes talaq-e-biddat or any other similar form of talaq having the effect of instantaneous and irrevocable divorce pronounced by a Muslim husband as void and illegal.

The Supreme Court had already agreed to examine the validity of the newly enacted law and issued notice to the Union government on a batch of petitions which sought to declare the Act as unconstitutional.

The plea by AIMPLB and Kamal Faruqui contended that the law was manifestly arbitrary and violated Articles 14, 15, 20 and 21 of the Constitution. The statute made unwarranted and wrongful interference in the Muslim Personal Law as applicable to Hanafi Muslims, it said.

"The impugned Act is a criminal statute having adverse impact on the life and personal liberty of those on whom penal consequences are to be visited. It is the elementary principle of law that any act or omission which is dealt with penal consequences should be defined with accuracy and precision,” it said.

Since Talaq-e-Biddat, pronouncement of triple Talaq in one sitting, has already been declared to be unconstitutional and its practice set aside, such utterance has no legal or civil consequence, it said.