The Supreme Court on Friday asked for the Center’s response on a plea that asked to have polygamy in Muslim communities declared unconstitutional and asked for a direction to Parliament to abolish this practice for all citizens, irrespective of religion.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) Suray Kant issued notice to the Union government on the petition, which was filed by activist Zakia Soman and others.
The plea asked for a direction to apply Section 82 of the Bharatiya Nayay Sanhita (BNS). The section punishes bigamy, uniform across religions, through eliminating the exemption available under Muslim personal law. The plea also asked for compulsory registration of Muslim marriages and divorces along with transparency and undisclosed second marriages.
Furthermore, it requested that the first wife and children in polygamous marriages must be given immediate rights to the matrimonial home and access to a fast-track mechanism for maintenance.
The plea also talked about Uttarakhand’s implementation of the Uniform Civil Code along with Gujarat’s planned adoption. It further highlighted Assam’s stance on pologamy.
The petition further said that the Quran’s objective was to slowly discourage and eliminate polygamy. It noted that several Muslim-majority countries have moved towards monogamy with the help of religious interpretations.
“Many Muslim-majority countries have moved away from unrestricted polygamy, using Quranic interpretation or state necessity to prioritize monogamy as the ideal social state. Several Muslim-majority jurisdictions have demonstrated that polygamy is neither essential to the practice of Islam nor immune from legislative reforms,” the plea said.
“The Indian Constitution neither grants any absolute protection to the personal law of any community that is arbitrary or unjust nor exempts personal laws from the jurisdiction of the legislature or the judiciary,” the plea noted.
The petition said that bigamy is a criminal offense for Hindus, Christians, and Parsis under their personal laws and the penal code. However, the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, allows up to four wives. The petition said that the constitution did not grant blanket protection to arbitrary or unjust personal laws.
