Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Dec 29: Former Union Minister and veteran Congress leader Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz has said that Muslim Personal Law Board (MPLB) must prove its representative character and adopt democratic and transparent methods for its functioning.
In a press statement here Prof Soz said, “I am one of those persons who tried to show utmost respect to All India Muslim Personal Law Board all these years, although I had serious reservations on the functioning of the Board. The Board had been functioning arbitrarily and totally undemocratically all these years, leaving the victim Muslim women to fend for themselves in courts, miserably and helplessly,” Soz added.
“Now that the Parliament has declared ‘Triple Divorce in one-go’ as criminal offence, the Board must do a serious thinking on its future. The Board must set its house in order by proving its representative character and adopting democratic and transparent methods in future,” Prof Soz maintained.
“It is so tragic that the Board failed to take notice that Islamic countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Cyprus Tunisia, Algeria, Malaysia, Iran, Jordan, Indonesia, UAE, Qatar, Sudan, Morocco, Egypt, Iraq etc had since declared triple divorce in one-go as un-Islamic. It is unfortunate that knowledgeable persons like Dr Tahir Mehmood, Salman Khursheed, Dr Zaffarul Islam Khan, Moosa Raza and Zeenat Showkat Ali have never been made members of the Board. I have a feeling that the Board could have adopted this reformative measure, along with other needed reforms, at least, two decades earlier,” Soz added.