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“The whole country is watching, that in the other House you supported the Bill, and in this House, you are trying to derail the Bill.”
These ‘golden words’ were enunciated by none other than the leader of the house in Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley; albeit none of them stand true in principle. In a dramatic turn of events, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley even preached to the members as to how the Upper House was violating the rules by allowing a motion to be introduced without 24 hours’ notice.
“What is the kind of parliamentary practice that you are creating?” – asked Jaitley, oblivious to the practice that was created by his own party to get the same bill passed in the Lok Sabha. Let us look at the loopholes in The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, and how it was bulldozed through Lok Sabha in a rather unfortunate way.
Substitute the people with elected legislators and the society with the parliament. One is bound to find an uncanny resemblance. The passage of the Muslim Women Protection Bill on 28 December 2017 in the Lok Sabha saw every possible tactic from bulldozing legislation through to coercing the parliamentarians to make a choice in black or white.
The list of business, which is usually updated a day prior included The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill (2017) for introduction, among three other bills; The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment) Bill; The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Amendment Bill; and The High Court and the Supreme Court Judges (Salaries And Conditions Of Service) Amendment Bill, for consideration and passage.
This is what the speaker had to say at 12:57 pm:
This exercise in principle helps the government in two ways – gives abysmally little time to the Opposition members to come prepared in the house for discussions, and since the time permitted to file the amendments is negligible, the bill sees the light of day with the least possible interruptions.
The bill was discussed for four hours and thirty-four minutes, in which a whopping 22 members took part. Thereafter, six amendments were put to vote by the house (out of which three were filed by Asaduddin Owaisi alone) which was divided five times.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad also acknowledged this fact by specially congratulating three members of the house for their valuable comments – Sushmita Dev (INC), Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP) and Supriya Sule (NCP).
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill was one of the few bills in this Lok Sabha session, among plenty of other economic legislations, which had the potential to lead society towards inclusiveness and development. However, the government should be excoriated for pushing this bill in such an undemocratic way.
I am not a legal expert, however, common sense tells me to raise a few unanswered questions. This bill, in turning a civil contract into a criminal act, penalising the husband for the mere utterance of the word, ‘talaq’ by making it a cognisable offence, is gravely retributive in nature rather than restorative.
The bill is silent on the provision as to how the husband will pay the subsistence allowance after being sent to jail for three years (as penalty). What would be the quantum or the criteria be for determining this allowance? The bill fails to provide any kind of counselling or educative provisions to the community.
Does this law presume that the pronouncement of ‘talaq’ three times by the husband would actually imply divorce? Since, talaq-e-biddat has already been declared void by the Supreme Court, the answer is a resounding no.
Hence, the marriage remains valid, while the husband is sent to jail for three years.
Is the government assuming that after spending three years in prison, the husband will be a changed man, who will now be willing to live with his wife? Or does this legislation further deteriorate the condition of Muslim women by making them vulnerable without any substantial recourse?
The BJP may follow its agenda of ‘changing the Constitution’, however, under no circumstance should it be allowed to mess with the social fabric of our secular society. No one wants this nation to be referred to as the land of ‘Hindu extremists’.
(The writer is a public policy professional and tweets @prakharsingh5. This is a personal blog and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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