Triple talaq bill to be tabled in Parliament today

The Narendra Modi-led government will introduce a bill on controversial triple talaq in the Lok Sabha on Friday, announced Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will introduce the Bill that seeks to protect the rights of married Muslim women and prohibit divorce by pronouncing talaq by their husbands. The Bill is being opposed by civil society groups for its contentious punitive clauses.

In a historic judgment on August 22, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court struck down instant triple talaq as illegal. The law was passed by the Union cabinet last week following a Supreme Court order pronouncing it invalid.

Muslim groups have been up in arms against it with the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind saying that regardless of what the legal position is, instantaneous triple talaq would continue to happen in Muslim society. Earlier, Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi had said the government had sought suggestions from various people before framing the law.