SC TO EXAMINE VALIDITY OF POLYGAMY AND NIKAH HALALA

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Muslim practices of polygamy and nikah halala and sought responses from the Centre and the law commission.

The court, which in August 2017 quashed the controversial Islamic practice of triple talaq, or instant divorce, had at that time refused to go into the two issues that were also raised by the petitioners.

On Monday, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said a fresh five-judge constitution bench would look into the two.

The court was hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the practices on the grounds of violating the right to equality, bias against women and gender justice.

Islam permits a Muslim man to have four wives but in India, home to the world’s third largest Muslim population, the practice is not widespread.

Nikah halala allows a woman to go back to her former husband but only after she marries another man and divorces him after consummating the marriage.

Last year as the triple talaq debate raged, law commission chairperson Balbir Singh Chauhan had described nikah halala as the worst kind of assault on a woman’s dignity.

A five-judge constitution bench had on August 22, 2017 held triple talaq as unconstitutional and illegal. The court held that the triple talaq was against the basic tenets of Quran.

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