Allahabad, Dec 8 (PTI): Coming down heavily on the practice of "triple talaq", the Allahabad High Court has held that this form of "instant divorce" is "cruel" and "most demeaning" which "impedes and drags India from becoming a nation".

"Muslim law, as applied in India, has taken a course contrary to the spirit of what the Prophet or the Holy Quran laid down and the same misconception vitiates the law dealing with the wife's right to divorce", a single judge bench of Justice Suneet Kumar said in its judgement passed last month.

The court observed that "divorce is permissible in Islam only in case of extreme emergency. When all efforts for effecting a reconciliation have failed, the parties may proceed to a dissolution of marriage by Talaq or by Khola".

"The view that the Muslim husband enjoys an arbitrary, unilateral power to inflict instant divorce does not accord with Islamic injunctions.It is a popular fallacy that a Muslim husband enjoys, under the Quranic Law, unbridled authority to liquidate the marriage.

"The whole Quran expressly forbids a man to seek pretexts for divorcing his wife, so long as she remains faithful and obedient to him", the court remarked in an order dated November 5.

"The Islamic law gives to the man primarily the faculty of dissolving the marriage, if the wife, by her indocility or her bad character, renders the married life unhappy; but in the absence of serious reasons, no man can justify a divorce, either in the eye of religion or the law", the court said.

The court made the observations while dismissing the petition of Hina, a 23-year-old woman, and her husband who was 30 years her senior and had married her "after effecting triple talaq to his wife".

The couple, hailing from Bulandshahr district in western Uttar Pradesh, had moved the court seeking a direction to the police and Hina's mother that they stop harassing the petitioners and their safety and security be ensured.