Opposition demands referring triple talaq bill to joint select committee

New Delhi, Dec 27 A united opposition in the Lok Sabha Thursday pitched for referring the triple talaq bill to a 'joint select advisory group' of Parliament, claiming its provisions were unconstitutional and that there was a requirement for a greater scrutiny of the draft law.

When the House met at 2 pm after a deferment to take up the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, Congress Leader in the Lok Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge, requested it be alluded to a joint select board of trustees of the two Houses for greater scrutiny.

He said several provisions of the bill were "unconstitutional".

AIADMK leader P Venugopal, TMC's Sudip Bandhopadhyay, AIMIM's Assaduddin Owaisi and Supriya Sule (NCP) also made similar demands.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said a comparative bill was talked about and gone by the Lok Sabha and along these lines individuals can hail issues during the debate.

She said out of the blue an interest can't be made to send it to a committee.

Talking in the house under the watchful eye of moving the goals, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the triple talaq charge, which looks for detainment for Muslim men blamed for moment separate, isn't about politics but empowerment and justice for women.

Responding to demand of opposition parties, including the Congress and the Trinamool Congress, that the bill be sent to a select board of trustees for study, Prasad said the administration has officially observed concerns communicated by individuals before and corrected the bill as needs be.

Prasad told the Lok Sabha that the bill has made the offense compoundable, meaning that the case can be pulled back if the man and his alienated spouse achieve a trade off, and that just the wife and her nearby relatives can file an FIR, precluding the law's misuse.

"Don't weigh the bill on the scales of politics. This bill isn't about an explicit religion and network. The bill is about humanity and justice," he stated, asking officials of different parties to talk in one voice to support the legislation.

He said upwards of 477 instances of triple talaq have been accounted for since January 2017 and refered to a case where a teacher offered talaq to his wife over Whatsapp.

Though another muslim man gave talaq to his wife for going to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's rally, the Union Law serve stated, asking if the house unitedly can pass a bill for capital punishment for alleged rape with girls below age of 12 years, then why not this legislation.