Daniel Latifi v. Union of India, AIR 2001 SC 3958

 

Danial Latifi v. Union of India, AIR 2001 SC 3958 

Case Name- Danial Latifi vs Union of India

CITATION- AIR 2001 SC 3958

DECIDED ON- 28th Sept. 2001

BENCH- G.B. Pattanaik, S. Rajendra Babu, D.P. Mohapatra, Doraiswamy Raju, Shivraj V. Patil

 FACTS IN BRIEF

In this case, the constitutional validity of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 was challenged before the Supreme Court. The Act was passed to appease a particular section of the society and with the intention of making the decision in case of Mohd. Ahmed Khan v. Shah Bano Begum ineffective. 

 In the Shahbano’s case , the husband had appealed against the judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court which had directed him to pay to his divorced wife Rs. 179/- per month, enhancing the paltry sum of Rs. 25 per month originally granted by the Magistrate. The parties had been married for 43 years before the ill and elderly wife had been thrown out of her husband's residence. For about two years the husband paid maintenance to his wife at the rate of Rs. 200/- per month. When these payments ceased she petitioned under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.). The husband immediately dissolved the marriage by pronouncing a triple talaq. He paid Rs.3000/- as deferred mahr and a further sum to cover arrears of maintenance and maintenance for the iddat period and he sought thereafter to have the petition dismissed on the ground that she had received the amount due to her on divorce under the Musilm law applicable to the parties. The important feature of the case was that wife had managed the matrimonial home for more than 40 years and had borne and reared five children and was incapable of taking up any career or independently supporting herself at that late state of her life - remarriage was impossibility in that case. The husband, a successful Advocate with an approximate income of Rs. 5,000/- per month provided Rs. 200/- per month to the divorced wife, who had shared his life for half a century and mothered his five children and was in desperate need of money to survive. 

 ARGUMENTS

The petitioner argued,

 (a) that the rationale of Section 125 Cr.P.C. was to offset or meet a situation wherein a divorced wife was likely to be led into destitution or vagrancy. It was urged that Section 125 Cr.P.C. was enacted to prevent such a situation in furtherance of the concept of social justice embodied in Article 21 of the Constitution. 

(b) That the object of Section 125 Cr.P.C. being to avoid vagrancy, the remedy thereunder could not be denied to a Muslim woman otherwise it would amount to violation of not only equality before law but also equal protection of laws (Article 14) and inherent infringement of Article 21 as well as basic human values. 

(c) That the Act was un-Islamic, unconstitutional and had the potential of suffocating the Muslim women while also undermining the secular character, which was the basic feature of the Constitution. And thus there was no rhyme or reason to deprive the Muslim women from the applicability of the provisions of Section 125 Cr.P.C. 

 Defending the validity of the enactment, it was argued on behalf of the respondents that

(a) if the legislature, as a matter of policy, wanted to apply Section 125 Cr.P.C. to Muslims, it also meant that the same legislature could, by necessary implication, withdraw such an application of the Act and make some other provision in that regard.

(b) Parliament could amend Section 125 Cr.P.C. so as to exclude it application and apply personal law instead. 

(c) That the policy of Section 125 Cr.P.C. was not to create a right of maintenance dehors the personal law and therefore could not stand in the way of the Act.

 JUDGEMENT

 Upholding the validity of the Act, the Supreme Court held as follows;  A Muslim husband is liable to make reasonable and fair provision for the future of the divorced wife which obviously includes her maintenance as well. Such a reasonable and fair provision extending beyond the iddat period must be made by the husband within the iddat period in terms of Section 3(1)(a) of the Act, o Liability of Muslim husband to his divorced wife arising under Section 3(1)(a) of the Act to pay maintenance is not confined to iddat period, o A divorced Muslim woman who has not remarried and who is not able to maintain herself after iddat period can proceed as provided under Section 4 of the Act against her relatives who are liable to maintain her in proportion to the properties which they inherit on her death according to Muslim law from such divorced woman including her children and parents. If any of the relatives being unable to pay maintenance, the Magistrate may direct the State Wakf Board established under the Act to pay such maintenance. The provisions of the Act do not offend Articles 14, 15 and 21 of the Constitution of India. 

 FOR COMMON MAN 

It is unfortunate to note that the Court did not strike down the Act which purports to exclude Muslim women in particular from the beneficial treatment of Section 125. The legislature to appease the Muslim gentry may have passed the Act on political consideration but that same has rendered an indirect classification of people of the basis of religion, which is against the fundamental aspect of Secularism which we have adopted in out Constitution.