Triple Talaq: Plea challenging penal provisions dismissed

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad dismissed the plea after citing the order by the Supreme Court, which refused to interfere in the issue.

The petitioner’s counsel Zaffarullah Khan had submitted that while the Supreme Court had already held in 2002 that Triple Talaq does not confirm to Quaranic concepts of divorce and hence not valid in law, the Government has introduced penal consequences for a contractual dispute.

He contended that when pronouncing Talaq itself is invalid, there is no legal justification for imposing punishment for pronouncing it. For an act to become a crime, there must be an injury caused to an individual or to the society at large, he said, and added, “A disagreement under a marriage contract between those belonging to a particular religion had been characterised as a crime though other religious denominations are not exposed to similar penal consequences.”

According to the petitioner, Hussain Afroze, any violation of the right of a woman or deprivation of financial support to her during subsistence of marriage would come within the purview of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 and Muslim women could always invoke this legislation to ascertain their rights.

It was also contended that such a law was per se discriminatory and in violation of Article 14 (equality before law) and Article 15 (prohibiting discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth).