Various women’s organisations and groups that have been working with Muslim women and fighting for their rights as equal citizens in all spheres of life, have strongly condemned the patriarchal, inhuman and unjust propositions put up by the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) to the Supreme Court in their affidavit concerning justification of triple talaq and polygamy. In a statement issued on September 3, they stated that the AIMPLB’s stand that ‘men have greater reasoning power compared to women’ smacks of a medieval mindset and prejudice against women. To presume that this would take care of murder of women and illicit relationships is a fallacy and the facts do not bear this out.
 
Their justification of polygamy and triple talaq contravenes the constitution and indeed the principles of gender justice in Islam. Triple talaq is unilateral and arbitrary. Nowhere in the Islamic world is triple talaq legal. Opposin it, the women’s organisations have demanded a ban on it forthwith. They have vehemently denounced the views of AIMPLB and expected them to a) withdraw their affidavit, b) apologise to all women and c) ensure that their statements in the future are not derogatory to women.
 
The signatories to the statement were, Zakia Soman and Noorjehan Niaz, Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA) Sehba Farooqui and Maimoona Mollah, (All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) and Annie Raja (National Federation of Women) (NFIW)