Cabinet gives nod to triple talaq ordinance

Once signed by President Kovind, this will be the third time the ordinance will come into effect within the last year

NEWDELHI: For the third time, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government will promulgate an ordinance to criminalise instant triple talaq, which will remain in force during the Lok Sabha elections till the next government decides otherwise.

The ordinance, approved by the Union cabinet on Tuesday, shows that the Narendra Modi government is fully backing the controversial legislation even though it could not pass the related bill in the last session of the 16th Lok Sabha.

The bill faced widespread disapproval from Opposition parties, making it impossible for the government to push it through in the Rajya Sabha where non-NDA parties are in majority.

Once signed by President Ram Nath Kovind, the triple talaq ordinance will come into force for the third time in less than one year.

According to a Bharatiya Janata Party insider, the party hopes to gain support from Muslim women for its resolve to come down heavily on triple talaq.

The government had earlier argued that even after the Supreme Court banned instant talaq, several such cases had been reported across the coun- try. Along with the triple talaq law, the Centre also cleared an executive order to enact an interim body to work on behalf of the Indian Medical Council, amendments to the Company Law and a new legislation to curb ponzi scams.

Barring the ponzi deposit law, the other three bills got the Lok Sabha’s nod but failed to clear the Rajya Sabha.

The Centre tightened rules for ponzi schemes by enhancing punishment and imposing heavy fines on chit fund operators.

The move to tackle such funds comes amid the ongoing Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the Sarada and Rose Valley scams in which thousands of common people have been looted.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley, when asked whether it would not have been better if the government waited for the next dispensation, said “these were matters pending not just for weeks or months but much longer. In many of these matters, in fact all of them, the discussions were prevented physically and not because numbers were arrayed against these measures.”

He also said that all these legislations are “in larger national interest”.