CII mulls punishment for ‘triple talaq’

ISLAMABAD: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) is considering penalising men’s common practice of pronouncing ‘talaq’ three times in one go to divorce their wives.

The CCI decided to formulate a divorce deed — ‘talaq nama’— which will be forwarded to clerics for their consent.

Speaking to journalists about the proposed plan, CII chairman Dr Qibla Ayaz said: “First of all, we need to finalise the matter in the council and then we will discuss the matter at a larger forum by calling a conference of Ulema to develop consensus.”

The council members were of the view that the divorce rate was rising in the country and it had to be controlled. “The whole family gets shattered and women and children are the worst sufferers after the separation,” Dr Ayaz underlined.

However, the council members were on the collision course on the penalty to be imposed on husbands who divorce their wives by pronouncing three ‘talaq’ in one go.

The issue of ‘triple talaq’ was also raised during the CII meeting in 2015 under then chairman of the council, Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani. The members had decided to declare the practice of pronouncing triple ‘talaq’ an offence.

The Indian government last week issued an executive order making the practice of “instant divorce” a criminal offence punishable by up to three years in prison.

The move imposed an outright ban on “triple talaq” — when a man ends his marriage by saying “talaq” (“you are divorced” in Arabic) three times in succession — a step closer.

Indian Muslim women say they have been divorced over messaging apps like WhatsApp or in letters, leaving them without any legal remedy.

India’s lower house, controlled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had passed legislation outlawing the practice in December.