Mumbai: As an early indication that a proposed bill for granting equal rights to a married woman in properties acquired and controlled by her husband will stir up a hornet’s nest, the state government has been asked to exclude Muslim families from the ambit.The state women and child development ( WCD ) department plans to introduce the Matrimonial Property (Rights of Women upon Marriage Act), 2012, which proposes equal partner status for a woman in her husband’s property.Though the bill is still in the drafting stage, it has already initiated an intense debate. With a section of Muslim clergy and religious scholars reacting sharply to the provisions proposed, the state minority development (MD) department has sought “exclusion of Muslim families” from the bill’s purview. The department also sought a review of all existing legislations and acts related to the subject.Naseem Khan, minister, MD department, reportedly discussed the demand with chief minister Prithviraj Chavan last week, following which Chavan asked the WCD department to consult the minorities department before finalizing the bill.The draft bill, first reported by TOI on October 18, 2011, proposes to “secure economic rights for married women to empower them”. It grants 50% rights to a wife in all “matrimonial properties”, which include all moveable and immoveable properties acquired by her husband, either jointly or individually.It also includes the husband’s share in a property or business in a joint family or a partnership concern and contribution by either spouse towards provident fund, pension and gratuity during the marriage’s subsistence.A woman’s separate property has been excluded from the notion of a joint property on account of “the historical disadvantage women suffer”. Money paid by either spouse under insurance policies, jewellery owned, property acquired after separation, streedhan, and award of damages in court in favour of either spouse have also been excluded. Claiming that acts like the Shariat Act (1937), the Dissolution of the Muslim Marriage Act (1939), and the Muslim Women Protection for Right on Divorce (1986) recognize rights of married and divorced women, Khan said that any change will hurt religious sentiments.