Five years after the Supreme Court's five-judge Bench under Chief Justice J.S. Khehar invalidated instant triple talaq in August 2017, the women petitioners continue to live a life of half-divorcees. Technically still married, practically divorced, they enjoy no conjugal rights nor receive any regular maintenance from the estranged husbands. Practically abandoned, the women cannot remarry in the absence of a legally valid divorce. After the verdict, none of the men were visited by law enforcement bodies and told to take back their wives. Further, no arrests could be made for giving instant triple talaq as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 came into force long after pronouncement of instant talaq.
A cloud of confusion hangs in the air as the women are uncertain of their eligibility for a fresh marriage. The apex court, it may be recalled, invalidated instant triple talaq in the Shayara Bano versus the Union of India case while refraining from commenting on the state of their marriages directly. The women had gone to court seeking redress as the victims of instant triple talaq. However, after the court had set aside Talaq-e-Biddat or instant triple talaq, the husbands of the petitioners failed to accept them back in marriage. Many of the men, meanwhile, have gone on to get married again, and sired children. Even as they toil through life, none of the women have opted to exercise khula, a woman’s inalienable right to divorce, either.
Says Shayara Bano whose petition against instant talaq by husband Rizwan Ahmed snowballed into the landmark verdict, "My husband established no contact to restore marriage after the judgment. Legally, I am still married to him.”
