Supreme Court to deliver verdict on triple talaq today:
Context
- A five-judge Supreme Court Bench, headed by Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, will on Tuesday pronounce its judgment on the legality of the Islamic personal law practice of triple talaq.
The decision of the court
- The court will be deciding if the law, which allows a Muslim man to divorce his wife by saying talaq (divorce) thrice, violates the fundamental and human rights of Muslim women.
- On October 16, 2015, the court questioned if Muslim personal law practices of marriage and divorce reduce women to chattels.
- In a rare move, it registered a suo motu PIL petition to examine if arbitrary divorce, polygamy and nikah halala violate women’s dignity.
- It lamented the missed opportunity to address gender inequality in both the Shah Bano and Danial Latifi cases.
- In the Shah Bano case, it had merely forced the government to frame the Uniform Civil Code.
