Blitz Bureau
THE Centre has defended the 2019 law against triple talaq by telling the Supreme Court that the practice is “fatal” to the institution of marriage.
Opposing a plea filed before the court challenging the constitutional validity of certain provisions of the 2019 Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, an affidavit filed by the Union Ministry of Law and Justice before the apex court said, “It was seen that setting aside talaq-ebiddat (triple talaq) by the Supreme Court has not worked as a sufficient deterrent in bringing down the number of divorces by this practice among certain Muslims.
“(T)he victims of talaq-e-biddat have no option but to approach the police for redressal of their grievances and the police were helpless as no action could be taken against their husbands in the absence of punitive provisions in the law. Therefore, in order to prevent the aforesaid practice, it was felt that there was an urgent need for stringent provisions in the law which act as a deterrent to Muslim husbands divorcing their wives by adopting instantaneous and irrevocable talaq.”
The Parliament in its wisdom has enacted the impugned Act to protect the rights of married Muslim women who are being divorced by triple talaq and the law in question helps in ensuring the larger constitutional goals of gender justice and gender equality of married Muslim women, the affidavit added.
“It is the function of the legislature alone to determine what is and what is not good and proper for the people of the land and they must be given widest latitude to exercise their functions within the limit of their powers else all progress is barred.
Defining offences and prescribing appropriate penalties is a core function of the State. Whether or not a particular type of conduct ought to be criminalised, and what punishment is to be imposed for such conduct is to be determined by the legislature in light of the prevailing social circumstances,” the affidavit said.
Further, it said that a similar petition challenging the validity of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, which was in similar lines to the impugned Act, was dismissed by the Delhi High Court in September 2018.
