International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research

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Maintenance Rights of Divorced Muslim Women after the 2019 Act: Judicial Trends and Gender Justice

Author(s) Rajendra
Country India
Abstract The issue of the right of divorced Muslim women to maintenance has been a debatable matter in the Indian personal law, which has generated intricate intersections between religious autonomy, statutory law, and constitutional gender justice. Traditionally, Muslim personal law restricted a husband to the iddat period after divorce to provide maintenance, whereas the secular law, especially Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, provided maintenance protection to divorced women regardless of their religion. The judicial interpretation has been instrumental in resolving these conflicting legal systems especially following the passage of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 and subsequent constitutional tests.
The paper will discuss how the rights of divorced Muslim women have changed over time with a particular focus on the revolutionary effect of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, which outlawed instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) and added subsistence allowance provisions. The study uses a doctrinal and analytical research methodology to examine statutory provisions, landmark judicial rulings and changing constitutional interpretations to determine whether the 2019 Act has enhanced gender justice among Muslim women. The case study is concerned with the major decisions of the Supreme Court of India, such as Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Daniel Latifi v. Shah Bano Begum. Union of India, Shamim Ara v. Iqbal Bano v. State of Uttar Pradesh. Shayara Bano v. State of Uttar Pradesh. Union of India, which broadened the legal status of the maintenance claims of Muslim women in general and underlined the constitutional principles of equality and dignity.
The research concludes that the judicial interpretation has always tried to reconcile personal law with secular values of social justice by confirming that divorced Muslim women cannot be deprived of maintenance on religious basis only. The 2019 Act is a significant legislative move as it nullifies instant triple talaq and offers a subsistence allowance mechanism to the Magistrate. The statute however, focuses more on short term monetary assistance rather than long term economic stability, and thus divorced women rely on the current remedies under the Criminal Procedure Code and the 1986 Act to maintain them over the long term.
The paper proposes that despite the fact that the legal framework that was enacted after 2019 enhances the procedural protection against arbitrary divorce, there still exist important loopholes in the provision of full financial protection to divorced Muslim women. To attain substantive gender justice, there is a need to enforce maintenance orders, provide more effective guidelines on how to determine subsistence allowance, and more comprehensive reforms on property rights and long-term financial support. The paper concludes that judicial activism and legislative reform have gradually enhanced the status of Muslim women in India, but to achieve gender equality in the real sense, more institutional solutions are needed that will provide divorced women with a steady and binding economic assistance.
Keywords Muslim Women Maintenance; Triple Talaq Law; Gender Justice in Personal Law; Criminal Procedure Code Section 125; Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019.
Published In Volume 4, Issue 4, July-August 2022
Published On 2022-07-05
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E-ISSN 2582-2160
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