Muslim Personal Law Board challenges PIL filed in SC against Polygamy & Nikah halala

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) on Monday filed a petition in the Supreme Court opposing the PIL filed by BJP leader Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay challenging the Islamic practice of polygamy and Nikah Halala among Muslims.

In its plea, the Muslim board has said legal issues like polygamy and other practices have already been decided in earlier judgments and that such PILs challenging religious practice cannot be filed by a person who is not a part of that religious denomination.

AIMPLB and other organisations already exist to protect the rights of Muslim women, it said.

The practice of polygamy in Muslim men started at a time when the women who were widowed or repudiated by their husbands were ostracised by the community and family as a used, ill-fated and unwanted creature. The women were subjected to cruelty in the place of employment or raped with no man to protect them. All this changed when under Islamic lawmen were permitted to take more than one woman in marriage (polygamy) to protect her honor and to provide for her legally.

The practice of Nikah Halala is were a woman, after being divorced by Triple Talaq, marries another man, consummates the wedding, and gets divorced again in order to be able to remarry her former husband.  This is a practice which acts like a deterrent, warning the man and woman to decide the fate of their marriage wisely than undergo such humiliation.

Ayesha Siddiqua