lucknow

Updated: May 11, 2017 18:35 IST

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has refused to renew the membership of one of its woman members, Rukhsana Nikhat Lari, for opposing pronouncement of triple ‘talaq’ (divorce) in one sitting.

“Yes, the decision was taken at the AIMPLB’s meeting in Kolkata in November last year,” confirmed Zafaryab Jilani, secretary of the Board.

“She was invited to attend the session. But since her three-year term had come to an end, the board did not renew her membership,” Jilani said.

He said the AIMPLB had 101 permanent and around 150 term members, who are elected every three years on the recommendation of the permanent members.

Asked whether all the term members were replaced every three years, Jilani said the decision on renewal of membership and retaining a particular member was the prerogative of the permanent members.

“The board has renewed terms of several members but it is done on a case-to-case basis,” he said.

Rukhsana Nikhat Lari is a former principal of a girls’ degree college in Lucknow.

When contacted, she said she had not received any communication from the Board regarding her termination.

“The board does not send any formal communication to members whose membership comes to an end,” Jilani said.

He, however, noted that prior consent of an individual is taken before being made a term member.

Rukshana Lari first locked horns with the clergy on triple talaq at a seminar in Lucknow in June 2016. She was subsequently not allowed to speak at the press conference after the event.

“If something is wrong, let us admit it and not live in denial simply because Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said it is wrong,” she said.

“I am not saying this to please anyone. One has to put the record straight in the light of the Quran,” said Lari, a member of the board since the 1990s.

On April 13, the AIMPLB submitted over 48 million signatures along with a petition to the Law Commission, objecting to a uniform civil code. The board claims that of the 48,347,596 signatures it gathered, more than half (27,356,934) were of women. Lari, however, said she did not sign any document in support of the AIMPLB campaign.

“They know my position on the issue. Probably that is why they do not involve me in such campaigns anymore. Divorce is deemed as the most deplorable thing in Islam. It is to be resorted to only when all attempts at reconciliation fail. The Quran provides three months time for this. Unfortunately, it is being misused now,” she said.

In its strongest ever censure of uttering ‘talaq’ thrice in one go, the AIMPLB, which represents all Muslim sects, issued an eight-point code of conduct to prevent ‘misuse’ of the practice and other Islamic laws (Sharia) in Lucknow on Sunday. But it stopped short of abolishing the utterance of ‘talaq’ thrice in one sitting.