“Sharia Courts” Have No Legal Authority To Grant Divorce, Chhattisgarh High Court Holds
The high court’s observation came while disposing of a writ petition filed by a Raipur-based Muslim woman challenging a communication-cum-order dated January 18, 2022, issued by the Idara-E-Sharia Islami Court here.
Raipur: In a significant verdict, the Chhattisgarh high court has held that the ‘Sharia courts’ or Dar-ul-Qaza lack legal authority or status to dissolve a marriage.
The high court’s observation came while disposing of a writ petition filed by a Raipur-based Muslim woman challenging a communication-cum-order dated January 18, 2022, issued by the Idara-E-Sharia Islami Court here.
Delivering a judgment in the case, a single-bench of Amitendra Kishore Prasad observed that the communication-cum-order issued by the Sharia court cannot have the legal effect attributed to it by the petitioner or her husband.
“It is, at best, a communication or religious opinion emanating from a private body and does not constitute a decree or judicial determination of dissolution of marriage. It neither creates, extinguishes nor alters any legally enforceable right or status of the petitioner”, the court observed.
The order by the Sharia court purportedly declared that the petitioner’s marriage to her second husband had ended through divorce.
The petitioner however challenged the order in the Chhattisgarh high court questioning its legality.
The high court bench however refused to make any comment on the ‘Talaq-e-Hasan’, made by the petitioner’s second husband thrice during a period of three months in 2021, holding that the matter is pending with the supreme court.
The bench ruled that the Sharia courts ‘have no jurisdictions to function as a Court constituted under the Constitution or any law enacted by a competent legislature, and any opinion, verdict or decision issued by it cannot be enforced by coercive process or treated as a binding adjudication of the civil or matrimonial rights of the parties.’
Quoting an observation by the supreme court, the bench held that ‘religious faith cannot be permitted to operate as a dehumanizing force or to be used to determine the rights, status or obligations of an individual in a manner contrary to the rule of law’.
