The All India Shia Personal Law Board has decided to intervene in the Shayara Bano case before Supreme Court on the issue of triple talaq. A decision to this effect was conveyed to the media following a meeting of the Board’s executive council in Lucknow on Thursday.
It also called upon the government to ban triple talaq just as the Sati practice among Hindus was banned by the colonial British government long ago.
(Sati practice, first banned in 1829, was applicable throughout the territories under colonial rule. A general ban for the whole of India was issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying of sati).
Speaking to the media, the Board’s spokesperson Maulana Yasoob Abbas stated that the triple talaq method of instant divorce was detrimental to women’s interests.
“Why should the women always bear the brunt of divorce? It is not only the woman but her entire family and her children face the trauma,” said Maulana Abbas, adding, “When Islam treats men and women as equals, how could discrimination against women be justified?”
It may be noted that the triple talaq system of instant divorce is not considered valid among Shias. Commenting on the gross injustice inherent in the practice, he observed: “Even when the government suspends or dismisses a peon, he is given a chance to explain his position, but when a man divorces a woman she is given no chance to put forward her point of view.
Several Muslim women’s organisations – Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), Bebaak Collective, All India Muslim Women’s Personal Law Board – have either already intervened in the Shayara Bano case or are in the process of doing so. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court pleading that the apex body has no right to interfere in Muslim Personal Law matters. The misogynist arguments of the AIMPLB in support of continuing triple talaq have been severely condemned by many Muslim men and women among others.