Zoomed Vinay Special · First-person editorial
Shah Bano Won ₹179.20 a Month. Within 391 Days Parliament Shut the Door She Had Used. The Courts Spent 38 Years Prising It Open
Seven claims, each read against the record: the Supreme Court's judgment of 23 April 1985 in full, the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha debates of 1985 and 1986, the 1986 Act, and the judgments of 2001 and 2024 that read it again. What Rajiv Gandhi's government said, what Arif Mohammad Khan said before he resigned, what Shah Bano herself is reported to have said, and what the record does and does not show about the opening of the Babri Masjid locks the same month.
The point of view
On 23 April 1985 five judges told a man who had put his wife out of their home after 43 years of marriage, and then divorced her, that he must pay her ₹179.20 a month. Three hundred and ninety-one days later the President signed a law that took divorced Muslim women out of the provision she had used, unless the husband agreed to let them back in. The Lok Sabha passed it 372 to 54 at 2.48 in the morning. The government said nothing had been diluted. Its own Law Ministry had advised a year earlier that the judgment was no encroachment on Muslim law. This file reads those records and grades every claim.
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Supreme Court of India, Mohd
indiankanoon.org
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Supreme Court of India, Danial Latifi & Anr
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Supreme Court of India, Mohd
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Supreme Court of India, Shayara Bano v. Union of India (22 August 2017), (2017) 9 SCC 1, Order of the Court
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Supreme Court of India, M. Siddiq (D) Thr
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The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 (Act 25 of 1986, assented 19 May 1986), with Statement of Objects and Reasons
indiankanoon.org
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Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, Section 144, (section page)
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Lok Sabha Debates, Eighth Lok Sabha, 23 August 1985, cols
Lok Sabha Secretariat
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Lok Sabha Debates, 25 February 1986, cols
Lok Sabha Secretariat
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Lok Sabha Debates, 27 February 1986, cols
Lok Sabha Secretariat
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Lok Sabha Debates, 5 May 1986, cols
Lok Sabha Secretariat
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Rajya Sabha Debates, 8 May 1986, cols
Rajya Sabha (Ministry of External Affairs reply)
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Report of the Liberhan Ayodhya Commission of Inquiry (2009, laid 24 November 2009), paras 25.1–26.3 (pp. 87–88), 27.8 (pp. 96–99), 58.10 (p. 340), 67.4–67.7 (pp. 405–406),…
archive.org
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Saeed Khan, "'My mother was wronged, gravely wronged'", Hindustan Times, Indore, 11 November 2011
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Ajaz Ashraf, "Arif Mohammad Khan on Shah Bano case: Najma Heptullah was key influence on Rajiv Gandhi", Scroll.in, 30 May 2015
scroll.in
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"The Shah Bano legacy", The Hindu, 10 August 2003
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Koenraad Elst, "What If Rajiv Hadn't Unlocked Babri Masjid?", Outlook
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