An organization run by Muslim women in Kerala's Kozhikode, Nisa, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to declare certain sections of Muslim personal law as unconstitutional.
The group asked for the apex court’s intervention in certain practices like triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala (Woman barred to remarry her divorced husband unless she marries another man truly,and then her second husband dies or divorce her).
Nisa president VP Zuhara told The Times of India that the group was just seeking the basic rights the Indian constitution grants to its citizens.
The petition to the SC reportedly stated that the succession rules in Muslim personal laws grossly also violated the right to equality as it stipulated that if a Muslim man died intestate leaving behind just one daughter, she has to share the property with his brothers, while such is not the case when the deceased is survived by just one son, ToI reports.
Zuhara pointed out that Muslim countries like Malaysia have considered reform in their personal laws.
Reacting to the development, K Alilutty Musaliar, general secretary of Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, the largest body of traditional Sunni scholars in the state, told ToI that sharia laws could not be questioned.