Women of all religions have the right to maintenance from their husbands after divorce. The Supreme Court ruled that Muslim women can claim maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the same way as everyone else. The judgment unambiguously placed ‘general’ law above the practices defined by religion. A man from the minority community had challenged the Telangana High Court’s direction to him to pay interim maintenance to his divorced wife. His refusal was based on the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 that allows the husband to stop paying alimony to his divorced wife after the iddat period of three months; if she remarries he stops paying anyway. There is also an insistence on mahr, which the husband either gives or promises the wife upon marriage. That is an amount agreed on in the marriage contract which is intended to safeguard her financial security in case of divorce or the husband’s death. In effect, the 1986 law brought personal law into the ambit of secular legislation. The latest judgment of the Supreme Court reasserts the primacy of the law of the land, negating arguments based on the 1986 act.

Any woman could always claim maintenance under Section 125 of the CrPC. The 1986 law mentions this option too — to be taken only upon the agreement of both parties recorded in an affidavit. The Supreme Court ruling opens up the route without conditions, empowering Muslim women by nullifying the requirements of the 1986 law. Maintenance is not a charity but the right of all women, for equality and financial security are their due. It has nothing to do with religious boundaries. The court further mentioned that women’s indispensable role in the family must be recognised; being married or not was not a factor in the right to maintenance. It is, therefore, not one principle of a secular democratic society that is being established by the example of the Supreme Court ruling. Society still baulks at gender equality and women’s rights; their financial security is often not a consideration in either natal or marital families. These are what that ruling focuses on. But most striking is the way that the judgment overrides an act based on personal law and places all women’s claim to maintenance on the same plane.