There is no exemption from crime under the guise of religious tradition: Shock to the accused of gang rape in the name of ‘Halala’ from the High Court
Prayagraj. Allahabad High Court has clearly refused to cancel a much talked about case registered in Saidangali police station of Amroha district of Uttar Pradesh. The division bench of Justice JJ Munir and Justice Tarun Saxena, while rejecting all four petitions of five accused including the main accused in the case, Tayyab, has also lifted the interim stay on their arrest. The court said in clear words that serious crimes cannot be avoided under the guise of personal law or any so-called religious tradition in the criminal law of the country. This whole matter is a painful tale of Nikah, Triple Talaq and then endless mental and physical exploitation of a woman in the name of Halala. The court understood this complicated matter through the timeline of Halala in two parts, first and second, and made strict comments.
Read: – Angered by his daughter’s love affair and video threat, the maternal uncle cut his nephew into three pieces and burnt the body on the banks of Ganga.
The victim was a minor at the time of first Halala.
The case began on April 25, 2015, when at the age of just 15, the victim was forcibly married to a man named Azhar Nawaz. After marriage, she started being beaten and in January 2016, her husband gave her triple talaq. After a few months, the husband came with a proposal to live together again, but the condition for this was Nikah Halala.
As part of the conspiracy, the woman’s first Halala Nikah was conducted with Maulana Qayyum in November 2016 in Siyana town of Bulandshahr, where she was forced to have physical relations with him. According to the medical board report, the victim was about 16 years old at the time of this first Halala. Taking this seriously, the High Court said that since the girl is a minor, this case is prima facie a serious juvenile crime under the POCSO Act.
Second Halala becomes gang rape
Read :- Allahabad High Court made a strong comment on Nikah, Halala and Triple Talaq, said – ‘Crime under the guise of personal law is not acceptable’
After the first Halala process, the woman remarried with Azhar in April 2017 and in 2018 she gave birth to a daughter. However, the husband’s attitude deteriorated again and he gave triple talaq for the second time in January 2021 and got married again during Iddat.
Later, on the pretext of daughter’s custody and expenses, Azhar again trapped the woman. He tricked her that since she had been divorced twice, Halala would have to be performed twice to live together again. It is alleged that under the same conspiracy, on February 19, 2025, in the name of second Halala, co-accused Shahnawaz Chaudhary and Hakim Nishat gang-raped the victim. The same evening, a fake marriage drama was also staged to mislead the woman. The High Court has clearly considered this entire second incident as a case of gang rape. After investigation, the police have named a total of nine people in the case under sections of the Indian Justice Code (BNS) and POCSO Act.
Sharp remarks and orders of the court
During the hearing, the lawyer of the accused argued that triple talaq was valid in the year 2016 and Halala is a valid Islamic tradition, hence this FIR has been filed only to put pressure in the custody dispute. On the contrary, the government lawyer and the victim’s lawyers proved by citing the historic Independent Thought decision of the Supreme Court that any physical relationship with a minor under any law is rape.
Giving the final seal on the matter, the High Court said that the court is not commenting on the constitutionality of Halala practice here, but the circumstances in which the woman was tortured are completely against the basic values of Article 14 (equality) and Article 21 (right to live with dignity) of the Constitution. The anticipatory bail of the accused has already been rejected and another case of threatening the victim has been registered, hence it is very important to have an in-depth and detailed investigation of this sensitive case.
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