New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday, July 31, sought the Centre’s response on a plea seeking to have polygamy among Muslims declared unconstitutional and asking for a direction to Parliament to abolish the practice for all citizens, irrespective of religion.
A bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant issued notice to the Union government on the petition filed by activist Zakia Soman and others.
The plea sought a direction to apply Section 82 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which punishes bigamy, uniformly across religions by doing away with the exemption available under Muslim personal law. It also sought compulsory registration of Muslim marriages and divorces with state authorities to prevent secret subsequent marriages, along with an immediate right to the matrimonial home and a fast-tracked maintenance mechanism for the first wife and children in cases of polygamous marriages.
The petitioners further asked the court to direct the Law Commission or the Union government to prepare a draft codifying Muslim personal law on marriage, divorce and succession in line with the constitutional principle of gender equality.
Neither essential to Islam nor above reform: Petitioners
The petition argued that the Quran’s intent was the gradual elimination of polygamy and that several Muslim-majority countries had moved towards monogamy through Quranic interpretation or state policy, showing that the practice was “neither essential to the practice of Islam nor immune from legislative reforms.”
Citing a survey conducted last year across seven states – Maharashtra, Gujarat, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Rajasthan – the petitioners said 88 per cent of husbands had not sought their first wife’s consent before a second marriage and 79 per cent had not even informed her, arguing that the practice was now driven by fraud rather than religious justification.
Polygamy, the plea said, was a “primary driver of female destitution.”
The petition noted that bigamy is a criminal offence for Hindus, Christians and Parsis under their personal laws as well as the penal code, while Muslim men are permitted up to four wives under the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937. It argued that the Constitution did not grant blanket protection to personal laws that were arbitrary or unjust, nor did it place them beyond the reach of the legislature or the judiciary.
The plea also pointed to Uttarakhand’s implementation of the Uniform Civil Code and Gujarat‘s planned adoption of it, alongside Assam‘s separate stance on polygamy, to argue that a uniform code remained a feasible goal despite the Supreme Court’s repeated observations on the issue over the years.
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