![]() ![]() There are no guidelines available to the judges of the family courts nor is there any special training provided to them. The experience of divorce, painful as it is, only gets compounded further by backlogs and delays in the courts. Matters are inevitably delayed in family courts. On the other hand, a woman exercising her right to dissolve the marriage has to approach the courts. The husband can dissolve the marriage by simply sending a mandatory notice and on its receipt, the clock starts ticking before divorce is effective. The law is inherently discriminatory for women. The procedure is even more cumbersome for a woman who chooses to dissolve her marriage by khula. For khula, a woman has to invariably enforce her right to dissolve her marriage from the courts. This has led to a confusion as courts have resorted to varied interpretations of law to fill the legislative gaps. The problem which flows from this is that the clock of 90 days only starts to run on receipt of notice. ![]() The law is ambiguous in case of the woman exercising delegated power of talaq to dissolve her marriage with regards to who has to send the mandatory notice, husband or wife. Section 8 of the law provides for dissolution of marriage other than by talaq which mainly includes three ways mubaraat (mutual consent), talaq delegated by husbands or by khula (woman’s right to dissolve marriage). However, despite legislative intent to the contrary, courts have enforced talaq and dissolved marriages without mandatory notice to the Chairman. In case of failure thereof, talaq becomes effective and marriage is dissolved. The Chairman then forms an “Arbitration Council”, with one representative each, of the husband and wife, and that has 90 days from the receipt of notice to amicably resolve the differences between the couple. It envisages that the husband after pronouncement of talaq must send a mandatory notice to the “Chairman”, appointed by the government, along with a copy to the wife. In section 7, the law prescribes procedure for dissolution of marriage by talaq (husband’s right to dissolve marriage). Instead of providing a level playing field to women, it has disincentivized the very right it had set out to protect! To this extent, the law has failed to achieve the proclaimed objective. The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance (MFLO), 1961 was promulgated to, inter alia, safeguard matrimonial rights of women. Revisiting The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance 1961 ![]()
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