Centre to introduce Triple Talaq Bill in Budget Session

New Delhi, June 12: The BJP-led Centre would introduce the contentious Triple Talaq Bill in Parliament in the upcoming Budget Session. The Union Cabinet today cleared a fresh bill to ban the practice of instant triple talaq.

"We will introduce the triple talaq bill in the upcoming parliament session," Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said while briefing the media about the decisions taken at the Cabinet Meeting today.

The bill will replace an ordinance issued in February by the previous BJP-led NDA government. The fresh will be introduced in the budget session of Parliament, beginning on Monday.

The opposition had been opposing provisions of the bill in Rajya Sabha where the government lacked numbers to ensure its passage. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, which made the practice of instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) a penal offence, was opposed by opposition parties which claimed that jail term for the husband for divorcing his wife was legally untenable.

The government had promulgated the ordinance on triple talaq twice. Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2019, divorcing through instant triple talaq will be illegal, void and will attract a jail term of three years for the husband. A bill to convert the earlier ordinance, issued in September 2018, was cleared by the Lok Sabha in December and was pending in the Rajya Sabha. Since the bill could not get parliamentary approval, a fresh ordinance was issued.

The following were the other important decisions taken at the Cabinet meeting:

OECD's multilateral convention to check tax evasion approved:

The Cabinet has approved ratification of a multilateral convention to implement OECD's project on checking tax evasion. The Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) was signed by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Paris on June 7, 2017. The Union Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved the ratification of the convention.

"The Convention will modify India's treaties in order to curb revenue loss through treaty abuse and base erosion and profit shifting strategies by ensuring that profits are taxed where substantive economic activities generating the profits are carried out and where value is created," an official release said.

The Multilateral Convention is an outcome of the OECD/G20 Project to tackle Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), which is resorted to by MNCs through tax planning strategies by exploiting gaps and mismatches in tax rules. It helps them artificially shift profits to low or no-tax locations, resulting in little or no overall corporate tax being paid. Post this convention, 90 countries have now implemented the automatic exchange of financial account and tax information. The Convention enables all signatories to meet treaty-related minimum standards that were agreed as part of the BEPS package.

India-Kyrgyzstan MoU on legal metrology cleared:

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between India and Kyrgyzstan for mutual cooperation in the field of legal metrology, which will be signed on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit on June 13-14.

The MoU was approved in the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here. Under the proposed pact, the two nations will exchange information and documents relating to legal metrology, develop training programme for officials and non-officials dealing with the subject, an official statement said.

Seminars, workshops, meetings, and attachment learning programmes will be held in the area of mutual interest, as may be appropriate.

That part, the two countries will establish requirements for pre-packaged goods and carry out the state metrological supervision of pre-packaged goods as well as review the status of the rules/regulations on pre-packaged goods. They will also share experience in carrying out of metrological supervision in mutual settlements between producers and consumers, the statement added.