A 40-year-old man was arrested on Monday for allegedly giving triple talaq, a punishable offence, to his wife, officials said.
The man was arrested from Bengaluru airport while he was scheduled to leave for Britain on Monday morning, they added.
"The incident took place on October 2022, but came to light earlier this month after his wife, aged 36, filed a police complaint in east Delhi's Kalyanpuri," a police officer said.
The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act 2019, which the Parliament passed in July 2019, makes the practice of instant divorce through the 'triple talaq' among Muslims a punishable offence.
Triple talaq (instant divorce) and talaq-e-mughallazah (irrevocable divorce) are now banned instruments of divorce previously available to Muslims in the country, especially adherents of Hanafi Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence.
They have been made punishable with up to three years in jail for the husband. Under the new law, an aggrieved woman is entitled to maintenance for her dependent children.
On August 22, 2017, the Supreme Court deemed instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddah) unconstitutional.
A Muslim man could legally divorce his wife by proclaiming three times consecutively the word talaq (the Arabic word for 'divorce') (in spoken, written or, more recently, electronic form).
The Centre first introduced the Triple Talaq Bill in Parliament on August 22, 2017. MPs from the Rashtriya Janata Dal, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, Biju Janata Dal, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Indian National Congress and All India Muslim League opposed the Bill.
Several Opposition lawmakers called for it to be sent to a select committee for scrutiny. It was passed on December 28, 2017 by the Lok Sabha, where the ruling BJP was in the majority.
The Bill followed a 2017 Supreme Court ruling that the practice of instant Triple Talaq was unconstitutional and a divorce pronounced by uttering 'talaq' three times in one sitting is void and illegal.
( With inputs from ANI )
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