Supreme Court verdict has deep implications for rights of these Muslim women
With the Supreme Court declaring triple talaq as unconstitutional, the stage has been set for the Parliament now to frame laws to regulate this practice among Muslims. One cannot help but recall a Bombay High Court order in a case involving India domiciled Pakistani musician Adnan Sami and his thrice married wife Sabbah in 2010. The Bombay High Court while pronouncing its verdict had quoted a famous judgment of the Delhi High Court of 2007 in the Masroor Ahmed vs State of Delhi case.
The Delhi High Court’s observation in parts was as follows: Classical Hanafi law, especially as it is practised in India, seems to take the opinion that triple talaq is sinful yet effective as an irrevocable form of divorce. The difficulty lies with triple talaq which is classed as bidaat (an innovation). Generally speaking, the Shia schools do not recognise triple talaq as bringing about a valid divorce. Judicial notice can be taken of the fact that the harsh abruptness of triple talaq has brought about extreme misery to the divorced women and even to the men who are left with no chance to undo the wrong.
While the psychological misery caused to Muslim women by triple talaq in India is well documented, statistics tell an equally grim story. Census figures show that for every Muslim man divorced in India, four Muslim women are divorced. Coincidentally or otherwise, under Islamic law, a Muslim man is allowed to keep four wives. Since the Muslims are a closed community in India, most of these are intra-faith marriages. Even among those who consider themselves to be separated rather than divorced, the figures tell a similar story. For every separated Muslim man, there are three separated Muslim women. The number of divorced Muslim women in 2011 touched almost half a million – a 40% increase as compared to 2001. The number of divorced Muslim men although much lower than Muslim women, grew much more at almost 70% during the same period.
There also seems to be a disproportionately larger number of young divorced Muslim women in India. It seems that as Muslim women in India cross the age of 25, they are more likely to be divorced by their husbands. Census figures show that the number of divorced Muslim women between the ages of 10 to 25 was just about 70,000. However, there seems to be a steep increase in the number of divorced Muslim women beyond that age. Almost 0.22 million Muslim women in age group of 25-39 years identified themselves as either divorced or separated. By the time a Muslim woman in India reaches the age of 60 – almost half a million of them have been divorced. Till the time a Muslim woman is younger than 24 years, less than 1% are divorced as compared to their married counterparts. However, once she crosses that age threshold, the proportion of divorced Muslim women to married Muslim women rises phenomenally.....
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