Pleas challenging polygamy, 'nikah halala' to be heard by fresh SC bench

New Delhi: The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it will convene a brand-new five-judge Constitution bench at an "appropriate stage" to hear appeals questioning the constitutionality of polygamy and "nikah halala," among Muslims

Ashwini Upadhyay, a lawyer who filed a PIL on the matter, argued before a bench made up of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala that Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code, which permits polygamy, halala, etc., must be scrapped.

“I will consider it. At an appropriate stage, I will constitute a constitution bench,” the CJI responded.

On August 30 last year, a five-judge bench comprising Justices Indira Banerjee, Hemant Gupta, Surya Kant, M M Sundresh and Sudhanshu Dhulia had made the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), National Commission for Women (NCW) and the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) parties to the PILs and sought their responses.

Justice Banerjee and Justice Gupta retired on September 23 and October 6 last year respectively giving rise to the need for re-constitution of the bench to hear as many as eight petitions against the practices of polygamy and 'nikah halala'.

Upadhyay, in his PIL, has sought a direction to declare polygamy and 'nikah halala' unconstitutional and illegal.

While polygamy allows a Muslim man to have four wives, 'nikah halala' deals with the process in which a Muslim woman, who wants to re-marry her husband after divorce, has to first marry another person and get a divorce from him after consummation.

The apex court had in July 2018 considered the plea and referred the matter to a Constitution bench already tasked with hearing a batch of similar petitions.

With PTI inputs