'How will criminalising Triple Talaq benefit women', asks Congress

With the Union Government set to table the Triple Talaq bill in the Lok Sabha today, the Congress party has said that it will not support it. Senior Congress leader and former external affairs minister Salman Khurshid said that the BJP-led government at the Centre has failed to make the Congress understand as to how criminalising Triple Talaq will benefit the women.

"I don't think we can support it because they didn't make us understand how this criminality of Triple Talaq will benefit women. If someone is lodged in prison as a punishment for saying Triple Talaq, who will take care of his family," Khurshid told the media today.

All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) had on Sunday said it would request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to withhold the bill for time being.

Secretary of the AIMPLB, Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, had earlier said the board is also against instant triple talaq but is not satisfied with its current structure. Even Rahmani had raised the same issue which Khurshid raised today.

"The bill is against women in the sense that courts talk of maintenance for women and the children by the husband after the divorce but this is in contradiction of the three-year jail term proposed in the bill. How will there be maintenance provided for the wife when the husband is in jail?" said Rahmani.

AIMPLB held an emergency meeting to oppose the proposed bill banning instant triple talaq on Sunday. The new bill, know as The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017, outlaws the Islamic divorce practice and hands out a three-year jail sentence as well as a fine, and states that the offence would be cognisable and non-bailable.

The Supreme Court had in August, by a majority of 3:2, ruled that the practice of divorce through instant triple talaq among Muslims is "void", "illegal" and "unconstitutional".

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