The egregious practice that many Muslim men employ to divorce their wives instantaneously and without their consent, merely by uttering the word talaq thrice, was rendered legally invalid by the Shamim Ara vs State of UP judgment of 2002 and subsequent orders from various High Courts.
But this has not stopped the practice; many Muslim women are unaware of the judgments or have had to accept such pronouncements owing to pressure from conservative sections.
Many women have undergone severe trauma after being thrown out of their homes. Shayara Bano, one such victim of this arbitrary custom — not to speak of years of domestic violence — has filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking a ban on the practice.
The conservative All India Muslim Personal Law Board that seeks to wield influence on questions of Muslim personal law has, predictably, found it an occasion to air its regressive views on the issue.
In a counter-affidavit, the Board has defended the practice in terms that are shocking even by its own standards. It claims that the custom is a way out to avoid long-running court proceedings and that, in the absence of triple talaq, a husband may resort to murdering or burning alive his wife because of the time-consuming legal proceedings that might otherwise be involved.
It further claims that “Indian society is patriarchal”, and that “personal laws of all communities are aligned with the patriarchal notion”. It defends the right to grant divorce to the husband alone, “because men have greater power of decision making” and uses a dubious line of argument on gender ratio to justify the practice of polygamy.
The AIMPLB, a body with no legal status, has long argued that divorce under Islamic law is undesirable and that triple talaq is a sin; however, it maintains it is a valid and effective form of laying a marriage asunder.
In truth, there is no sanction for the triple talaq in the Koran, which has laid down elaborate injunctions on divorce, in stark contrast to the immediate and irrevocable nature of the triple talaq.
This practice has been either explicitly derecognised in Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia, Iran and Tunisia or implicitly in countries such as Pakistan, which provides for a mandatory arbitration procedure after the pronouncement of talaq.
The Supreme Court must not be swayed by the arguments put forth by the AIMPLB, which has held that “personal laws cannot be challenged”. Considering the clear and elaborately laid-down norms on marriage in the Koran that grant equal rights to the husband and wife to pursue divorce proceedings and the right to equality guaranteed in the Indian Constitution, it is high time that the Supreme Court ruled this practice as illegal.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.