Moneycontrol News
In a landmark judgement on Tuesday considered a victory for gender justice, a five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court struck down the practice of triple talaq in Muslim marriages.
One of the key figures in the effort to get the centuries-old practice declared illegal was Shayara Bano.
On February 23, 2016 Shayara Bano became the first Muslim woman to file a writ petition challenging the practice of triple talaq, which allows Muslim men to obtain a divorce merely by pronouncing "talaq" thrice, either orally in person or in a written format or delivered electronically by a phone call, SMS or via social media.
After the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the practice in October 2015, Shayara Bano and many other Muslim women filed writ petitions challenging it, eventually leading to the historic judgement passed with 3-2 majority in the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
A native of Uttarakhand and a sociology graduate, Bano had filed the petition after her 15-year long marriage to a man from Allahabad ended abruptly in 2015. She was allegedly both physically and emotionally abused by her husband and in-laws.
After the Supreme Court verdict declaring triple talaq unconstitutional, Bano told ANI, "“I welcome and support the judgment. This is a historic day for Muslim women.”
Bano, a mother of two, was divorced by her husband through triple talaq. After the divorce, her husband had taken away her two children - Irfan and Muskan- whom she has not met since.
"If this law had been in place earlier, I didn't have to suffer," Bano told Hindustam Times. "I don't know where my children are and what they are facing. I don't want any woman to suffer like me."
Bano has claimed that she was made to go through a dozen abortions at the behest of her husband and her in-laws. Additionally, she was also stopped from meeting her relatives and family members, apart from demands for excessive dowry.
Bano told the Indian Express that she was tortured and suffered to the point that she had to take anti-depressants. Her mother, Feroza Begum and father Iqbal Ahmed, said that she underwent an emotional breakdown. When she couldn't deliver a child in the first two years of her marriage, her mother-in-law asked her husband repeatedly to divorce her.
After repeated abortions, she pleaded with Rizwan, her husband, to let her undergo a tubectomy, but he refused. When her health worsened, her husband left her at her father's home in Uttarakhand with a promise of bringing her back on recovery.
As she gradually began to improve, Bano requested her husband to take her back before a talaqnama (divorce document) arrived unexpectedly in a telegram.
It was then that Shayara Bano and his family decided to challenge the "instantaneous triple talaq". In her petition, she challenged the constitutional validity of Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937 as it seeks to validate three practices of polygamy triple talaq and nikah halala.
She also challenged the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act, 1939, on the grounds that it fails to protect Muslim women from bigamy.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
