New Delhi - India's Supreme Court on
Tuesday ruled a controversial Muslim quick divorce law
"unconstitutional", a landmark victory for Muslim women who had
long argued that it violated their right to equality.
The law allows Muslim men to divorce their wives simply by
uttering the word "talaq" three times. Muslim women say they
have been left destitute by husbands divorcing them through
"triple talaq", including by Skype and WhatsApp.
Three of the five judges hearing a case questioning the
legality of the law ruled it was unconstitutional, effectively
ending its legal practice.
The court's verdict was marred by confusion initially, with
the senior judge, the chief justice of India, announcing that
his opinion was to suspend the practice and ask the government
to come up with a new law within six months.
He was overruled by the three judges who said it was
unconstitutional.
"Finally I feel free today. I have the order that will
liberate many Muslim women," Shayara Bano, one of the women who
brought the case, told Reuters after the ruling.
Triple talaq is banned in several Muslim countries,
including in neighbouring Pakistan and conservative Saudi
Arabia.
Debate over the law has pitted an unlikely coalition of
Muslim women, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Hindu
nationalist party which wanted the law quashed, against some
Muslim groups which say the state has no right to interfere in
religious matters.
Some fear that the Hindu majority is trying to counter
Islamic influence in society.
India allows religious institutions to govern matters of
personal law - marriage, divorce and property inheritance -
through civil codes designed to protect the independence of
religious communities, including of minority Muslims.