The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019: A Law with A Hollow Scheme

Abstract

The fight of Muslim women in India is a crusade of rights. They have often remained a puppet in the name of “Women’s rights”. The major reason behind this is a lack of shrewdness of those women who give green signal to shallow and superfluous rights by victimizing their eternal rights. One such recent example which has been a subject of controversy is victimized Muslim women who assuredly need protection through the liberal rights discourse but are bestowed the insignificant rights through the currently enacted, The Muslim women (Protection of rights on marriage) Act, 2019. This Legislation has been highlighted as social reformation for married Muslim women which ensures Gender equality and helps promote married Muslim women’s fundamental rights and their empowerment. To the contrary, this act shows red eye towards Muslim husband by criminalizing the pronouncement of triple talaq. This paper explores the issue of criminalizing private conduct under the shade of Jurisprudence which determines State’s limit to regulate private behaviour. Furthermore, it advocates reviving the identity of Muslim women by unveiling the repercussions of the provisions of the Act. It further efforts to solve the issue of triple talaq by taking it to the plane of ‘Individual Autonomy’. The present research is descriptive in nature based on secondary data.