Supreme Court judgement likely to push BJP’s Uniform Civil Code
The landmark triple talaq verdict has given big boost to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has long pushed for a uniform civil code to be enforced which would end the reach of different religious laws in civil issues, sanctioned originally to protect the independence of different faiths. In a farreaching verdict empowering millions of Muslim women, the Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down triple talaq, or instant divorce, by a 3:2 verdict of the constitutional bench.
The verdict has given the Centre an opportunity to fulfill their long pending agenda of having a common civil code through a new legislation. Backing the petitioners in this landmark case, in different public speeches, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken against the practice, pledging to protect the right to equality of all women declaring triple talaq unconstitutional, derogatory and discriminatory for women.
The apex court has said that if a legislation banning triple talaq completely is placed before Parliament within six months, the stay on the practice would continue till Parliament enacts or rejects the law.” In the last six decades since the Constitution was adopted, Congress party-led governments at the Centre have been accused of shirking their responsibility of announcing a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) as mandated by Article 44, which was placed as a Directive Principle of State Policy, mandating the government to endeavour to bring in a political climate that would be conducive to enacting the code.
However, at the time of the drafting of the Constitution, in the wake of the partition of the subcontinent and the riots that gripped the country thereafter, it was believed that the time was not right to enact a UCC. The mood in the BJP is upbeat after the SC judgement which had been accusing the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government of ‘minority appeasement’.
Triple talaq has been an issue of concern for over 65 years for Muslim women, who comprise approximately eight percent of the population as per the 2011 census.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down the practice terming it “unconstitutional". After reading separate judgements, the majority of five-judge bench of Supreme Court ruled triple talaq to be void and illegal.