'Rights upheld': Activists hail verdict

HAILING the Supreme Court ruling that divorced Muslim women are entitled to maintenance under the Section 125 of the CrPC, several rights activists on Wednesday said that the verdict will have positive implications on the rights of Muslim women in the country.

- PREETHA NAIR

In its ruling, the apex court said maintenance is not charity but the right of married women and it is applicable to all married women irrespective of their religion.

Speaking to this newspaper, Zakia Soman, women's right activist and co-founder of Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan, said that such progressive judgments will pave the way forward for equal legal rights of Muslim women within marriage and family. "With such judgments, we should celebrate because it is like a march forward," Soman said.

"In the ruling, Justice Nagarathna has unequivocally said that all married women are entitled to maintenance and that includes Muslim women. The clear messaging is that no woman can be barred on account of religion," she said.

Soman, one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court behind the abolition of triple talaq, said that a grave injustice and an anomaly have been corrected by the SC with this judgment.