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Nearly four decades later, this question is back in the spotlight with Suparn Verma Right – A film reimagining her fight through the story of Shazia Bano (played by Yami Gautam) – a woman abandoned by her husband who dares to fight for her right to maintain her children.
For more than a decade, Shah Bano lived in Indore with her husband Mohammad Ahmed Khan, a renowned lawyer. They built a life and raised five children – three sons and two daughters. But Khan married a younger woman and moved away from his first family.
For some time, he sent ₹200 per month to Shah Bano. Eventually that too stopped. Left without means or support, she approached the courts, filing a petition for maintenance under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973. The intent of that section of the law was simple: any person unable to support himself – a wife, child, or parent – could seek financial assistance from a person of sufficient means. Importantly, it was secular, applying to all Indians regardless of faith.
Khan protested. He argued that his obligations under Muslim personal law ended once he supported him iddat period (a waiting period of three months after divorce) and no further maintenance was required. To clarify his position, he divorced her by pronouncing triple talaq.
A local magistrate sentenced Shahbano to just ₹25 per month. The Madhya Pradesh High Court later increased this to ₹179.20, but Khan took the fight to the Supreme Court, insisting that religious law protects him from any further liability. By now the matter had progressed due to a woman’s petition. It became a mirror reflecting India’s deepest tensions between religion, authority and reform.
In 1985, seven years after he first filed his petition, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, led by then Chief Justice YV Chandrachud, delivered a landmark judgment. The Court ruled in favor of Shah Bano, upholding her right to maintenance under Section 125 and reaffirming the secular nature of the law.
Chief Justice Chandrachud said, “Section 125 was enacted to provide quick and summary remedy to a class of people who are unable to maintain themselves. What difference would it make as to what religion the neglected wife, children or parents follow? … Morality cannot be mixed with religion.”
The court also rejected Khan’s claim that Mahr (Mehr) fulfilled his duty, calling it a “mark of respect” and not a substitute for lifelong maintenance.
What should have been a historic victory for gender equality instead resulted in a national uproar.
Conservative Muslim organizations condemned the decision as an attack on Sharia and accused the judiciary of interfering in a sacred area. Protests spread across India. Faced with growing anger, the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress government bowed to political pressure.
In 1986, Parliament passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, effectively overturning the Supreme Court decision. Under the new law, the husband’s liability was limited to iddat Duration. After this, the divorced woman will have to depend on her relatives or failing that, on the Waqf Board.
The move sparked outrage among women’s rights groups, who saw it as a betrayal of justice. What started as a fight for a woman’s dignity ended as a political compromise.
As the storm over her case intensified, Shah Bano quietly stayed away from the limelight. He died in 1992 after a brain hemorrhage – he never saw how his act of defiance would endure as a symbol of courage.
Years later his son Jamil told Hindustan Times,The lady of honor was (It was a fight for self-respect).” for that fight Respect Reshaped the legal and political landscape of India – forced the country to confront whether personal law could co-exist with constitutional equality, and revived the long-dormant debate on the Uniform Civil Code.