‘Declare polygamy in Islam illegal’

‘Declare polygamy in Islam illegal’

What happened?

A fresh plea was filed in the Supreme Court seeking to declare as “illegal” and“unconstitutional” the practices of polygamy and ‘nikahhalala’ among the Muslim community

What is NikahHalala?

‘Nikahhalala’ is a practice intended to curb the incidence of divorce, under which a man cannot remarry his former wife without her having to go through the process of marrying someone else, consummating it, getting divorced and observing a separation period called ‘iddat’ before coming back to him.

What the petition said?

• By virtue of Muslim Personal Law, Section 494 of the IPC (marrying again during the lifetime of husband or wife) was rendered inapplicable to Muslims and no married woman from the community had the avenue of filing a complaint against her husband for the offence of bigamy.
• This is in blatant contravention of Articles 14 (equality before law), 15 (prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution