There are no immediate plans by the Narendra Modi government to promulgate an ordinance to operationalise the triple talaq law, even as the bill for the proposed law is stuck in the Rajya Sabha, according to government sources.
With the Monsoon Session of Parliament set to begin next month, sources said the government will make efforts to take it up in the Rajya Sabha and pass it. “We are in no hurry to bring an ordinance on triple talaq. We will try again to pass it in the Rajya Sabha. Promulgating an ordinance would be our last resort,” a source said.
When asked about the triple talaq bill at a press conference recently, Union Minister for Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad said that he wants to appeal to opposition leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mamata Banerjee and Mayawati to go beyond the political divide and help pass the bill. He, however, parried a specific question on whether the government planned to take the ordinance route for the proposed law.
According to government sources, the possibility of promulgating an ordinance on triple talaq was discussed since the bill is stuck in the Rajya Sabha. However, it would not be the preferred option at present as it would have limited validity. An ordinance is valid for six weeks from the date when the next session of Parliament starts. It has to be put to vote in Parliament or it lapses, and it cannot be re-promulgated without having first used the option of putting it up before Parliament for ratification.
Prasad said that the government will pursue the proposed legislation in all earnestness. The bill has been passed in the Lok Sabha and is pending in the Rajya Sabha, where it has run into stiff opposition from rival parties. The Congress has said that it will reject the bill outright if it is taken up in the Rajya Sabha again.
The opposition parties have opposed the bill primarily for the penal provision that it proposes.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in December 2017. It is, however, stuck in the Rajya Sabha, where the opposition has the numerical strength to stall it. The opposition parties have demanded that the bill should be sent to a parliamentary committee for review before it is taken up in the House.
The bill provides for up to three years of jail for a husband who resorts to triple talaq. Under the proposed law, triple talaq would be a cognisable and non-bailable offence. It also empowers women to approach a magistrate to seek subsistence allowance for herself and her children.