SC Lists Triple Talaq Matters For Hearing From May 11, No Mention About The Bench.

The Supreme Court has put out a circular regarding the commencement of hearing of petitions challenging practices like triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala from May 11 but has surprisingly not mentioned the name of the judges who will be part of the constitution bench.

The circular dated May 5, 2017 uploaded on the Supreme Court website merely says “take notice that the matter shown below which is to be heard by constitution bench consisting of five honourable judges will be listed from Thursday the 11^th May, 2017”.

Recently Justice Chelameswar had refused to participate in the vacation hearings citing personal reasons.

The Supreme Court had already constituted two constitution benches for hearing other two matters.

The bench comprising of Justices Dipak Misra, A.K.Sikri, Amitava Roy, A.M.Khanwilkar, and Mohan M.Shantannagoudar will hear the WhatsApp privacy matter.

The bench comprising of Justices Madan B.Lokur, R.K.Agrawal, Prafulla Chandra Pant, D.Y.Chandrachud, and Ashok Bhushan will hear the Assam Mgrants issue.

A bench headed by chief justice J S Khehar had on March 30 2017 referred the petitions to a constitution bench and had said first the issues shall be framed before day-to-day hearings commence.

The bench had on February 16 asked all sides including aggrieved women petitioners, Centre,  All India Muslim Personal Board and women rights bodies to submit written submissions by today on the issue of triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala.

"It is such an important issue...we cannot rush through..it will take time..there are so many nuances to it and we have to consider each one of them" , the bench had said.

Taking ahead its hearing on batch of petitions, one of them taken suo motu by it on the contentious issue and recurring complaints of gender discrimination suffered by Muslim women arising out of several rules in its personal laws, the Supreme Court  said it would decide issues pertaining to legal aspects of the practices of triple talaq, 'nikah halala' and polygamy among Muslims and would not deal with the question whether divorce under Muslim law needs to be supervised by courts as it falls under the legislative domain.

The bench had however, made it clear that it was not dealing with the issue of Uniform Civil Code (UCC), which is currently being examined by the Law Commission of India.