india

Updated: Dec 26, 2018 07:28 IST

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday issued a whip to its Lok Sabha members asking them to be present when Parliament’s winter session resumes two days later. The whip followed Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s announcement that the central government would push the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, that seeks to criminalise the practice of instant divorce among a section of Muslims.

The whip indicated the government’s intent to pass the bill even as many Opposition parties have serious reservations about it.

The bill, which was tabled last week, provides for a three-year jail term for those found guilty of following the practice. It would supersede an earlier bill that the government had managed to get passed in Lok Sabha in December last year. The previous bill sought to make instant divorce a punishable, cognisable and a non-bailable offence.

The government was forced to issue an ordinance or executive order to criminalise the practice in September 2018 after failing to have the earlier bill passed in the Rajya Sabha. The revised bill includes bail provisions as part of attempts to soften some aspects of the proposed law.

Opposition Congress leader Shashi Tharoor last week opposed the fresh bill saying “it has no procedural safeguards to prevent its misuse”.

He added that the bill “conflates civil law with criminal law by criminalising a wrong form of divorce and by criminalising an act which is already legally null and void”.

The Supreme Court had banned the instant divorce, calling the practice “unconstitutional” in August 2017.

Tharoor called the proposed law “an attempt in creating a class-specific legislation on the grounds of religion, instead of focusing on the larger issue of mistreatment and desertion of wives and dependents”.

The Congress, which has 47 members in the Lower House , is likely to aggressively reiterate its demand for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the Rafale aircraft deal, days after the Supreme Court ruled out any court-monitored probe into it.

The Congress or other Opposition parties had not issued any whip until Tuesday evening. A Congress functionary said, “It is not our issue. We want a JPC on Rafale before anything else.”

But leaders of other Opposition parties indicated they will eventually issue whips to ensure a large presence in the House to counter the plan to push the bill.

(With agency inputs)