Sharia, Kazi courts not above Indian law, says SC, grants maintenance to Muslim woman in landmark judgment

Reversing the order of lower courts, a court of Kazi and a court of of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat, the Supreme Court on Tuesday awarded maintenance to a Muslim woman and her children in a landmark judgment, as per reports.

The judgment not only establishes the superiority of the Indian legal framework over religious arbitration or declarations. The apex court reportedly observed that such declarations by religious courts like Court of Sharia – in this case the court of Kazi and Kajiyat in Bhopal – stand only if both the parties agree to it voluntarily and even then if it does not conflict with any other law.

The court observed that these religious bodies carry no legal weight and their verdicts cannot be enforced, as per reports. 

The Supreme Court ruling reportedly came while hearing an appeal filed by a Muslim woman seeking maintenance from her husband after a family court and Allahabad High Court had only awarded maintenance to her two children, and not her.

Before that, her husband had secured a ‘talaqnama’ in Bhopal’s Court of Kazi, and later in ‘Court of (Darul Kaja) Kajiyat’, as per reports.

The husband, an employee with the Border Security Force, had reportedly used the talaqnama to argue against paying his wife, which according to the apex court, was not a valid reason to deny maintenance.

The family court and Allahabad HC had held that there was no satisfactory reason for the woman to leave the matrimonial home and the separation lacked justification, as per reports.

The woman, however, had reportedly left the house claiming dowry demands and harassment over it after the marriage had turned sour.

The apex court reversed the earlier judgments by the lower courts and awarded the woman with ₹4,000 maintenance and ordered the husband to support their children financially until they were 18.