Lok Sabha passes bill to criminalise instant triple talaq

Besides Congress, the Trinamool Congress party and Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU), which is a coalition partner in the NDA, staged a walkout after a day-long heated debate over the bill.

The bill was passed with 302 votes in favour of it while 78 voted against the same.

It still has to be passed by the Rajya Sabha before it can become a law.

According to the new law, Muslim men could fail jail for exercising the triple talaq practice, which is essentially divorcing their wife by uttering "Talaq" thrice.

The Opposition has opposed the bill in its present form.

"Twenty Muslim countries in the world, including Pakistan and Malaysia, have banned the triple talaq. Why can't a secular India do it?" law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

The bill, which has been passed in Lok Sabha twice - in 2017 and 2018 - but stalled in the Upper House, seeks to prohibit instant divorce given to Muslim women by pronouncing the word 'Talaq' thrice by their husbands and to provide for matters connected therewith.

With the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha last month, the previous bill had lapsed as it was pending in the Rajya Sabha.

Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance issued earlier this year divorcing through instant Triple Talaq is not only illegal and void but will also attract a jail term of three years for the husband.