The Kerala High Court on Tuesday observed that a divorced Muslim woman need not be sent to a court of law to record talaq, if it was otherwise in order according to the personal law concerned.
The officer concerned can record the talaq without insisting on a court order. There is a lacuna in Kerala Registration of Marriages (Common) Rules, 2008 and the Legislature should think about the same, the court said, on a petition filed by a divorced Muslim woman seeking to ‘record the fact of divorce’ in the marriage register after her marriage was dissolved on pronouncing ‘talaq’.
A Muslim marriage is conducted as per the personal law and thereafter registered under the Kerala Registration of Marriages (Common) Rules, 2008. Subsequently, if the husband pronounced talaq as per his personal law, he can remarry without removing the entry in the register of marriage maintained under Rule 2008, because his personal law permitted more than one marriage in certain situations, while a divorced Muslim woman cannot remarry till the marriage entry as per the rule was removed by approaching a competent court of law.
After the dissolution of marriage, the woman approached the Local Registrar for Births and Deaths and Marriages, Vadakara, to make entries in the marriage register regarding the dissolution of marriage. But it was rejected by the officer stating that the rules did not contain any provision authorising him to make such an entry.
The woman argued that the want of provision cannot be a reason for making an entry in the marriage register. The court said that if there is the power to register the marriage, the power to record the divorce is also inherent and ancillary to the authority who registered the marriage, if there is a divorce under the personal law.
