In a significant ruling, the Bombay High Court has questioned the Thane Municipal Corporation’s (TMC) rejection of Mezouar Zouaouia’s application to register his third marriage. The TMC had initially denied the registration, citing the Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998, which defines marriage as a single union and does not recognise multiple marriages.
However, the court found the TMC’s interpretation of the law to be incorrect. It emphasised that the Act does not prevent Muslim men from registering multiple marriages, as personal law allows for such unions. The court highlighted that the TMC had previously registered Zouaouia’s second marriage under the same Act, demonstrating a contradiction in their stance.
In its directive, the court ordered that no coercive actions, including the deportation of the petitioner’s wife, be taken during the ongoing proceedings and for two weeks following the final decision on the marriage registration. The writ petition has been disposed of with instructions for compliance, and a compliance hearing is scheduled for November 29, 2024.
In July, the Supreme Court had ruled that Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which deals with a wife’s legal right to maintenance, applies to all women regardless of their religion and a divorced Muslim female can file a petition under this provision for maintenance from her husband.
A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Justice Augustine George Masih pronounced separate but concurrent judgments upholding Muslim women’s rights after a Muslim man (petitioner) challenged a Telangana High Court direction to pay Rs 10,000 interim maintenance to his former wife.
