Supreme Court To Examine The Validity Of ‘Talaq-e-Hasan’ Practice Among Muslims

The Supreme Court on Thursday (4 May) agreed to take up the issue of the validity of ‘talaq-e-hasan’, an extra-judicial form of divorce under the Muslim personal law, PTI reported.

Talaq-e-hasan is a practice under which a Muslim man can unilaterally divorce his wife by pronouncing talaq, either orally or in writing, three times with a gap of one month between two consecutive pronouncements.

Under this practice, a divorce gets formalised after the third utterance of the word ‘talaq’ if cohabitation has not resumed during this period.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud was hearing a batch of petitions led by one Benazeer Heena. The court said, “These appear to be squarely challenging the constitutionality of the mode of divorce. We need to set them up for a detailed hearing.”

While refusing to hear individual petitions, the court asked Kanu Agarwal, appearing for the Centre, to prepare a tabulated chart on the relief being sought in the long list of petitions and place it before the court.

The apex court further asked the Centre, National Commission for Women, National Human Rights Commission, and others to file their responses in the case.

Meanwhile, all the petitions have sought for the Centre to frame guidelines for gender and religion-neutral laws for divorce.

Previously, the apex court had quashed the practice of talaq-e-bidat or triple talaq as unconstitutional and violative of articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution.

The court, in August 2022, had said that talaq-e-hasan was “not so improper” since the women also have the option of khula, unlike talaq-e-bidat where the same isn’t available.