Even after three years of the passage of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) is yet to reach a consensus to insert a prohibition on instant triple talaq in the model nikahnama to be used for solemnising Muslim marriages.
The wedding contract remains a work under process. There is no clear word when, if at all, such a nikahnama would be finalised. The amended nikahnama will be sent across to the country to qazis who solemnise Muslim marriages. The AIMPLB had taken a pledge to insert a prohibition on instant triple talaq in the model nikahnama.
An AIMPLB meeting earlier this month failed to reach a consensus on the contents of the new model nikahnama. Though there was large agreement on the need to insert a clause against instant triple talaq after the Supreme Court made it invalid and Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 made it a criminal act. The AIMPLB members suggested that a clause on Talaq-e-Tafweez or delegated divorce needed to be inserted.
Under Talaq-e-Tafweez, the husband vests his power to divorce in his wife, thereby effectively ruling out hasty or instant talaq. However, many intellectuals of the Hanafi sect did not agree, leading to a fresh failure to draft the new nikahnama.
“There have been differences on the issue of Talaq-e-Tafweez but broad agreement on prohibition on instant triple talaq. We hope to finalise the nikahnama by the end of this year,” said SQR Ilyas, executive member of AIMPLB.
The AIMPLB has been facing ideological logjam since 2017. Following the heat generated over the instant triple talaq, the AIMPLB had pledged to formulate a nikahnama prohibiting instant talaq or Talaq-e-Biddat. Since then, multiple parleys have failed to bring about consensus on the new nikahnama whose first model was formulated in 2003.
The modern nikahnama used in Muslim marriages is often a token affair with no mention of the rights of the spouses. Under this light, the AIMPLB had sought to issue an advisory that marriage should not end without making an attempt at reconciliation. And if talaq must be resorted to, it must be through the Quranic way. However, what the model nikahnama fails to contain is an express prohibition on instant talaq even after five years of the Supreme Court’s judgment invalidating triple talaq in 2017.