Plea in SC challenging setting up of Sharia courts

New Delhi, Sep 2: The Supreme Court has considered a fresh plea of a Muslim woman seeking to declare as unconstitutional the setting up of Sharia courts to decide marriage, divorce and other cases.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud asked petitioner Zikra to file an application to intervene as a party in a batch of pleas challenging the practice of polygamy and ‘nikahhalala’ among Muslims. Read This – Idea of book is to present transparency: Venkaiah Naidu The apex court, which had last year banned the age-old practice of instant ‘triple talaq’ among Sunni Muslims, had on March 26 decided to refer to a five-judge Constitution bench a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of polygamy and ‘nikahhalala’.

Polygamy allows a Muslim man to have four wives. Under ‘nikahhalala’, a man cannot remarry his former wife unless she marries another man, consummates the marriage, gets a divorce and observes a period of separation period called ‘iddat’.

Zikra, a 21-year-old resident of Uttar Pradesh and a mother of two, was represented by lawyer AshwiniUpadhyay. She has demanded that triple talaq be declared “cruelty” under Section 498A and ‘nikahhalala, nikahmutah and nikah-misyar’ rape under Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code. “Polygamy is an offence under Section 494 of the IPC,” her plea read. Muslim personal laws of India permit the practice of nikahhalala and polygamy. In her petition, Zikra narrated her experience of facing “triple talaq, nikahhalala and other laws and practices”.

The woman was divorced twice and forced to undergo ‘niakhhalala’ to remarry her husband. “Declare that establishing a Sharia court to decide cases related to marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, succession and/or other similar matters is illegal and unconstitutional,” Zikra said in the plea. The Muslim Personal Law, like all other personal laws, is subject to the rigours of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution and “any part of it contravening the fundamental rights would, to that extent, is void and ineffective”, she said.

“Nikahhalala, nikahmutah, nikahmisyar and polygamy definitely run counter to public order, morality and health,” the plea read. It said these laws must “yield to the basic right of women to live with dignity, under equal protection of laws, without any discrimination on the basis of gender or religion”. Earlier, the top court had said the petitions challenged the prevalent practices of polygamy and ‘nikahhalala’ and they would be heard by the Constitution bench.

The Centre recently made it clear that it would oppose in the Supreme Court the practice of ‘nikahhalala’ when the top court would examine its legal validity in the coming days.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)