KOCHI: Kerala high court has held that although Muslim personal law permits multiple marriages, it is conditional on the husband’s ability to ensure justice to each wife. Citing verses from the Quran, the court also stated that a person incapable of maintaining a second or third wife was not entitled to marry again.Justice P V Kunhikrishnan gave the ruling while directing the social welfare department to provide counselling to a blind man from Palakkad, who earns his livelihood by begging, through competent counsellors, including religious leaders, to dissuade him from entering into a third marriage.The man’s second wife from Malappuram challenged the dismissal of her maintenance claim by a family court. She alleged that he earned about Rs 25,000 a month by begging outside mosques on Fridays, but the family court rejected her claim by observing that a beggar could not be compelled to pay maintenance.In her appeal, she alleged that the man threatened to pronounce talaq against her and planned a remarriage. The court did not accept an allegation of physical assault, reasoning that it was unlikely unless she submitted to it, and upheld the family court’s ruling on the maintenance claim. On the charge that the man intended to remarry by invoking Muslim personal law, it said a person without the means to support additional wives could not marry again. It noted that the petitioner herself was married to him while his first marriage was subsisting.The bench observed that such marriages often arose from a lack of education and awareness of Muslim personal law. It said courts could not endorse successive marriages when the husband had no capacity to maintain his wives. Noting that a majority of Muslims in Kerala practised monogamy, it said the minority practising polygamy should be educated by religious leaders and society.Asserting that the govt had the responsibility to protect a blind person forced to beg for livelihood and to intervene when such a person repeatedly entered into marriages, the court directed forwarding a copy of the order to the secretary of the social welfare department for appropriate action.
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