Varun Hari Prasad

In February 2014, the Parliament passed The Andhra Pradesh Re-organisation Act which gave birth to the 29 th state of the country, Telangana. While the bill was being considered by the Rajya Sabha, the then Leader of Opposition Mr Arun Jaitley moved certain amendments to the bill in order to protect the interest of Andhra Pradesh.  In order to dispel the apprehensions of Mr Jaitley, on 20 February 2014, the then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh made a statement on the floor of the Rajya Sabha in which he gave six assurances, which is as follows: “ Mr. Chairman Sir: I have listened very carefully to the views expressed by the Leader of Opposition and all the other members who have spoken, especially those from Andhra Pradesh. The Home Minister has already mentioned the specific steps our Government will take to address the concerns of all regions of the state, particularly of Seemandhra. I would like to make a few further announcements in this regard.  ...

Talaq – e – Biddat or Triple Talaq as it is commonly known is a form of divorce in which a man may divorce his wife by saying the words Talaq three times. This may be done by writing or simply by forms of electronic media such as SMS or e-mail. On 22 August 2017, the Supreme Court of India, in a 3:2 majority judgement ruled that Talaq – e – Biddat is unconstitutional and declared the practice as void. However, despite the judgement of the Supreme Court, reports of Triple Talaq being practiced have been widely circulated in the media. In an attempt to counter this menace the Government of India came up with the The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017. Before getting into the need and merits of the Bill, let us briefly have a glance at the history of interventions with regard to Triple Talaq. The History In 1978, a Muslim Lawyer in Madhya Pradesh divorced his wife Shah Bano, by pronouncing Triple Talaq due to disputes between Shah Bano’s chi...