Unseemly haste 

Unseemly haste 

Context

The triple talaq Bill and the fantasy of legislative-judicial collaboration

Author’s contention

Author contends that the Bill is at odds with the very judgment that it purports to reinforce

Contradictions

• Terms triple talaq an illegal divorce: The statement of objects and reasons accompanying the Bill indicates that it is meant to give effect to the court’s judgment, which it claims had failed to produce any deterrent effect in reducing the practice of triple talaq across the country. The purpose of the court’s judgment was disarmingly simple: to deprive talaq-e-biddat of recognition in the eyes of the law. That remains the case irrespective of the frequency with which it is exercised. To speak of “illegal divorce”, as the statement does, is therefore a contradiction in terms – triple talaq is simply not a divorce in the first place
• Flawed provisions: A victim of triple talaq, the Bill says, is entitled to a subsistence allowance and custody of minor children. These provisions belong to a Bill that regulates divorce, not marriage. A victim of triple talaq remains married to her husband. As a wife (rather than an ex-wife), she should be entitled to far more than mere subsistence. The question of custody does not arise where the couple remains married
• Criminalisation accentuates asymmetry: Until the judgment, there was an asymmetry between the authority conferred upon the words of a Muslim man as opposed to a Muslim woman. By indicating that Muslim men lacked the power to divorce their wives through triple talaq, the Court diminished that asymmetry. This Bill accentuates it once again and puts men at the centre of legislative policy, by triggering a number of legal consequences upon the utterance of those words

Conclusion

Not everything that is arbitrary or unlawful is, or in this case should be, criminal