By Sahar Khan
Raipur: In July 2020, Nirosh Abbasi, a widowed mother who had lost her first husband five years earlier, embarked on a new beginning by marrying Mohd. Abid Khan in Raipur. But domestic harmony was short-lived. Friction soon escalated into discord over her children’s adjustment, followed by bitter domestic cruelty, alleged harassment, and deep-seated marital discord. When mediation at the local One Stop Sakhi Centre collapsed, Nirosh lodged an FIR under Section 498-A against her husband and in-laws in late 2021.
Yet, while formal legal machinery was turning into statutory police stations, another entity attempted to intervene. On January 21, 2022, Nirosh received an ominous document dated January 18, 2022, from a private body calling itself the Idara-e-Shariya Islami Court. It declared an extra-judicial “judgment” declaring that she had been divorced from her husband.
Refusing to accept this private decree, Nirosh approached the High Court of Chhattisgarh. Her petition challenged the validity of the document and questioned how a religious body could decide her legal status without statutory authority or constitutional due process.
In response, the husband argued that the document was simply recording his personal pronouncement of Talaq-e-Hasan, carried out over three months in 2021. The religious body defended itself by stating it was merely an advisory entity exercising freedom of religion under Article 25 of the Constitution, rather than acting as a formal court. The Chhattisgarh state, however, cautioned that the institution was mimicking the judiciary, displaying the justice on its seal, recording witness statements, and issuing judgments, which threatened to build a parallel legal system.
High Court judge Justice Amitendra Kishore Prasad, presiding over the case, firmly rejected the legitimacy of such ‘extra-judicial’ forums. Relying on the Supreme Court of India’s precedent in Vishwa Lochan Madan, the High Court ruled: The power to pass legally binding decisions flows strictly from laws enacted by the legislature, not from private religious bodies.
Any verdict, or order issued by an informal religious council is merely a non-binding opinion. It cannot alter legal rights, cannot be enforced by coercion, and cannot take the place of a decree from a statutory Family Court, he further stated.
While the High Court chose not to rule on the wider constitutional validity of Talaq-e-Hasan, noting that the question is already under review by the Supreme Court, it firmly quashed the Idara-E-Shariya’s divorce order as legally void.
Justice Prasad observed that while faith governs personal conscience, only the Constitution governs the law: private religious councils cannot act as courts, and the rule of law remains supreme.
