The Kerala High Court on Wednesday issued notice to the former wife of Palakkad Principal District and Sessions Judge B. Kalam Pasha on his petition challenging a complaint filed by her under Section 494 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) against him before the Ernakulam Judicial First Class Magistrate Court.
In his petition, he pointed out that a petition was filed against him for offence under Section 494 of IPC (re-marriage during the lifetime of a husband or a wife). As his former wife had indulged in character assassination and treated the petitioner with cruelty, the petitioner was constrained to pronounce triple talaq in 2017 after series of mediations/conciliation and arbitration.
Later, he married another woman in 2018 in terms of the Muslim personal law. In fact, the petition filed by his former wife challenging the validity of the talaq was dismissed by a family court earlier. The marriage with present wife was valid. In the meantime, his former wife had filed a series of complaints against him before the magistrate court and before various authorities to harass the petitioner.
She had also filed a petition under Sections 3, 4, and 7 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, for prosecuting the petitioner with vague and incorrect allegations, besides filing a petition under the provisions of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, he said.
Mr. Pasha pointed out that the personal law of the petitioner permitted more than one wife for a man at a time and as such, no offence could be said to have been committed by him at all under Section 494 of the IPC. The complaint was unjustifiable and amounted to a travesty of judicial process and justice.
Besides, there were absolutely no allegations in the petition which disclosed the offence. The attempt was to tarnish his reputation and goodwill and assassinate his character, he said.
The petitioner sought to quash the complaint filed by his former wife for the offence under Section 494 of the IPC. The court posted the case for further hearing on March 10.
