Five years after the All India Muslim Personal Law Board pledged to insert a prohibition on instant triple talaq in the model nikahnama to be used for solemnizing Muslim marriages, the wedding contract remains a work under process. There is not clear word when, if at all, such a nikahnama would be readied and sent across to qazis who solemnize 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 made it a criminal act, the 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 Hanafi sect didn’t agree, leading to a fresh failure to draft the new nikahnama.
Says SQR Ilyas, executive member of AIMPLB, “There have been differences on the issue of Talaq-e-Tafweez but broad agreement on prohibition on instant triple talaq. We hope to finalize the nikahnama by the end of this year.”
