Triple Talaq Bill to be moved by Ravi Shankar Prasad in Rajya Sabha on December 31

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will move the Triple Talaq Bill in Rajya Sabha on December 31. With 245 ayes and 11 noes, the much-anticipated Muslim Women Bill (Triple Talaq) 2018 was passed in Lok Sabha on Thursday. The politically sensitive bill seeks to make the practice of instant Triple Talaq among Muslim men a penal offence. The fresh Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on December 17 to replace an ordinance issued in September 2018. Under the proposed law, giving instant divorce will be illegal and void, and attract a jail term of three years for the husband. 

The Congress party, however, said it will not let the passage of the Triple Talaq Bill in its present form in the Rajya Sabha.  The party would join hands with those parties with which it can ally with to defeat the bill in the presentform, AICC general secretary KC Venugopal on Saturday told reporters. He said 10 opposition parties had come out openly against the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018 when it was introduced in the Lok Sabha.  

Even the parties, including AIADMK which supports the government on various issues and the Trinamool Congress, have come out openly against the bill, said Venugopal who is also a Congress floor strategist. Condemning the bill, he said stringent provisions like criminalisation of a civil wrong were there in the triple talaq bill and it was not at all acceptable for the opposition parties, including the Congress.  

The opposition, which had been demanding that the bill be referred to a 'joint select committee', staged awalk out when its demand was rejected by the government. The bill was passed by the Lower House with 245 voting in favour and 11 opposing the legislation.      

It would now go to the Rajya Sabha for passage and if passed would become the law. Piloting the bill, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had said there should be no politics on the bill, stressing that it was not against any particular community. Describing the passage of the triple talaq billas a historic step to ensure equality and dignity of Muslim women, BJP chief Amit Shah had demanded apology from the Congress for decades of injustice.  

(With PTI inputs)