Congress floor leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, his party colleague Shashi Tharoor, Hyderabad lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi and Saugata Roy of Trinamool Congress are likely to move the Statutory Resolution opposing the Ordinance on Triple Talaq Bill in Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The fresh Muslim Women – Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on June 21.
The ruling BJP has issued whip and directed its members to be present in the House when the Bill is debated and considered for passing.
According to sources in the opposition camp, vocal RSP member N K Premachandran and P K Kunhalikutty of Indian Union of Muslim League (IUML) have also given their name to the Speaker Om Birla’s office to ‘oppose’ the Ordinance and are likely to speak against the much controversial draft law that bans triple talaq among Muslim married women.
The opposition members would oppose the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2019 promulgated by the President on February 21, as the bill, to this effect, passed twice by the Lower House of Parliament in December 2018 and also in 2017 could not get through the Rajya Sabha.
Bills that are introduced in Rajya Sabha and are pending do not lapse with the dissolution of Lok Sabha, but the draft laws passed by Lok Sabha and pending in the Rajya Sabha, however, lapse.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, according to norms, will move The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2019 for considering and passing.
The draft law seeks to protect the rights of married minority community women and to ‘prohibit divorce by pronouncing talaq’ by their husbands and to provide relief for matters connected therewith.
The opposition parties led by Congress have been opposing provisions of the bill in Rajya Sabha where the government did not have enough numbers to ensure its passage.
The bill makes the practice of instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) a penal offence. It has been opposed by opposition parties, which among other things, also claimed that jail term for the husband for divorcing his wife was legally untenable.
The government had promulgated the ordinance on triple talaq twice.
Last month, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that that bringing the Bill in Parliament yet again was to adhere to the philosophy of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas’ that has been the pivot of the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (UNI)
