Supreme Court seeks data on FIRs registered under 2019 law on triple talaq

“We want the list of cases all over India where FIRs are filed. Now in all states, FIRs are centralised. Just give us a list of that… We will examine the data,” CJI Khanna told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who appeared for the Centre.

The bench asked the government to inform the number of FIRs registered under Sections 3 and 4 of the Act. Section 3 provides that “any pronouncement of talaq by a Muslim husband upon his wife, by words, either spoken or written or in electronic form or in any other manner whatsoever, shall be void and illegal”.

Section 4 prescribes imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, besides a fine on “any Muslim husband who pronounces talaq referred to in section 3 upon his wife”.

Defending the Act, Mehta said making the pronouncement of instant triple talaq punishable was well within the Centre’s legislative policy domain. He submitted that the law only prescribed three years’ imprisonment, compared to other legislations protecting women’s rights prescribing even greater punishment.

CJI Khanna said that the pronouncement of triple talaq does not lead to a valid divorce, and the husband-wife relationship remains. “If the divorce itself is not recognised, the relationship then continues and no separation. But now you have penalised the very act of pronouncing it…,” he remarked.

Mehta said that the numbers would show whether the practice is still continuing and if women are coming forward against it or not. He submitted that the law was the least the government could do to protect women from the regressive practice.

Appearing for a petitioner, Advocate Nizam Pasha said the “mere utterance of words (talaq thrice)” has been criminalised.

Mehta countered this and pointed out that there are provisions like section 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) which penalise utterances. “If I threaten someone orally, it is a section 506 offence. It is a severe crime,” Mehta said.

Senior Advocate M R Shamshad, also representing a petitioner, said that any such situation as the kind contemplated under the 2019 Act can be taken care of under the Domestic Violence Act and there was no need for a separate law.

He said that while FIRs are not registered for months in matrimonial cases even if the wife is beaten up, FIR is filed under the 2019 Act for mere utterance.

The SG said that “in no civilised section, such a practice is there.”

Pasha argued that the Act abandonment of a wife by her husband is not treated as a criminal offence in any other community to which Mehta said that triple talaq was also not practised in any other community.

The CJI said the petitioners did not seem to be defending the practice of triple talaq but were opposing its criminalisation.

“I am sure none of the lawyers here are saying that the practice is correct, but what they are saying is whether it can be criminalised when the practice is banned and no divorce can take place by uttering talaq three times at once,” CJI Khanna said.

The court also wondered how the petitioners could challenge the entire Act.

Fixing the next hearing in March, the bench also changed the cause title of the case to “in re challenge Muslim Women (Protection of Rights of Marriage) Act, 2019.”