A woman has filed a complaint against a qazi who proclaimed her divorced and issued the divorce certificate.
This is the first time that a qazi has been named in a criminal complaint for granting divorce. In a complaint to the pol-ice, the woman contended that a qazi is not empowered to proclaim divorce and grant the marriage dissolution certificate under the Qazi Act 1880.
Shabana Begum from Nampally, while lodging her complaint with the DGP, law and order, has named Qazi Habeeb Ahmed Bin Salam Al-Attas, qazi of Dar-ul-qaza Al-Sharaee, Maisaram Balda, as the one who confirmed the divorce and issued a certificate.
Ms Shabana stated that the qazi has no power to do so according to the Qazi Act 1880, Islamic Canon and guidelines of the Supreme Court. She alleged that her husband Mohammed Nazeeruddin Khan, from Manikpally, Vanasthalipuram, divo-rced her as she refused to bring more dowry while the qazi acted under her husband’s influence.
“My husband came with a marriage proposal, falsely claiming that his first wife had died and that he had four sons and three da-ughters. Two months after the marriage, I discovered that before marrying me, he had married two other women and had children from them.
"I endured all this due to my parents’ poor financial backgro-und. However, my husband started demanding more dowry and when I refused, he asked for divorce. The qazi violated rules,” Ms Shabana said.
Apart from proclaiming the divorce, the qazi fixed the amount of marital gift (meher) to Rs 25,000, a meager maintenance amount of Rs 8,000 and kept it with himself, asking the compl-ainant to collect the money by proving her identity.
According to the Act, the qazi has no judicial or executive powers to fix the maintenance amount.