High Court issues notice to former Wife of Judge

On Wednesday, the High Court of Kerala issued notice to the Ex-Wife of Palakkad Principal District & 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 plea, 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 & treated the petitioner with cruelty, the petitioner was constrained to pronounce triple talaq in 2017 after series of mediations/conciliation & arbitration.

Later, he married another woman in 2018 in terms of Muslim personal law. In fact, the plea 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 & before various authorities to harass the petitioner.

She had also filed a petition under Sections 3, 4, & 7 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019, for prosecuting the petitioner with vague & 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 & as such, no offence could be said to have been committed by him at all under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code. The complaint was unjustifiable & amounted to a travesty of judicial process & justice.

Besides, there were absolutely no allegations in the petition which disclosed the offence. The attempt was to tarnish his reputation & goodwill & 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.

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