Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday claimed that women granted divorce under the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registrations Act, 1935, were not entitled to any alimony.
With the state cabinet's decision to repeal the Act, this "torture" on Muslim women will end and they will be able to get subsistence as ordered by a court of law, he added.
"Under the Act, kazis had the right to register marriages and they could grant divorces as well. Now, when kazi allows a divorce, the woman doesn't get anything. But if a court allows divorce, the ex-husband has to pay subsistence," Sarma said, while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a programme.
"The torture that was happening to our mothers will now be stopped," he said, referring to the state cabinet's decision to repeal the Act, which purportedly allowed registration of marriage even if the bride and groom had not reached legal ages.
Referring to kazis getting bail even when they registered underage marriages under the Act, Sarma said, "Now, when this law will be gone, talaaq will be difficult and registration of marriages of underage girls cannot happen anymore."
The cabinet's decision to repeal the Act was welcomed by the ruling BJP while the opposition parties in the state termed it as ''discriminatory against the Muslims'' brought in to polarise the voters in an election year.
Sarma had maintained that the decision was taken in a bid to end the social menace of child marriage in the state, with the government launching an intensified, phase-wise crackdown against it since last year.
