A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice on a batch of petitions for striking down the practice of polygamy and nikah halala in the Muslim community. The hearing is scheduled after the Dusshera holidays in October.
A five-judge bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee, Hemant Gupta, Surya Kant, M.M. Sundresh and Sudhanshu Dhulia heard nine petitions challenging these practices on Tuesday.
A few Muslim women have filed petitions and BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Upadhyay has challenged the constitutional validity of polygamy and nikah halala.
The Top Court bench on Tuesday issued notices to the National Human Rights Commission, National Commission for Women and the National Commission for Minorities and posted the petitions for hearing in the second week of October.
In March 2018, a 3-judge bench referred these cases were referred to the 5-judge bench.
The Sharia or the Muslim personal law allows men to practice polygamy that is, they can have more than one wife at the same time, up to a total of four.
‘Nikah halala’ refers to a procedure in which a Muslim woman has to marry another person and get divorced from him before being allowed to re-marry her divorced husband. Many Ulama are of the opinion that the cultural practice of Nikah Halala is un-Islamic.
The petitioners want to ban Polygamy and Nikah-Halala claiming that it renders Muslim wives extremely insecure, and vulnerable and infringes their fundamental rights.
In the petition, the counsel has prayed that Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act be declared unconstitutional and violative of Articles 14 (right to equality), 15 (discrimination on ground of religion) and 21 (right to life )of the Constitution, insofar as it seeks to recognize and validate the practice of polygamy and nikah halala.
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Rabia Shireen is a Staff Reporter at The Cognate.
