Shah Bano case

The Shah Bano case was a Mohammad Ahmad Khan versus Shah Bano Begum case (1985). In this contentious maintenance case in India, the Supreme Court ruled in support of paying maintenance to a Muslim woman who had been wrongfully divorced. The most contentious part of the law that the government passed was the right to maintenance during the iddat period following a divorce and the transfer of the maintenance obligation to the woman's family or the Waqf Board. It denied Muslim women their right to basic maintenance under secular law and hence, the law was viewed as discriminatory.

In 1978, Shah Bano Begum, a resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was divorced by her husband. She received the right to alimony from her husband after filing a criminal lawsuit in the Supreme Court of India.  Nonetheless, a push to overturn the ruling was launched by a few Muslim MPs.  The woman in this case received a favourable ruling, which sparked criticism among Muslims. Some of them demonstrated in protest, that the ruling was against Islamic law by citing the Qur'an. It sparked debate on the degree to which India's many religions have distinct civil codes.

The Congress government passed the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986 with an absolute majority, diluting the Supreme Court's ruling and limiting Muslim divorced women's right to alimony from their ex-husbands to ninety days following the divorce (the "iddah]]" period in Islamic law) due to the case. The Supreme Court of India however, interpreted the act in a way that reassured the validity of the case in later rulings, such as Danial Latifi versus Union of India and Shamima Farooqui vrrsus Shahid Khan. As a result, the Shah Bano ruling was upheld, and the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 seemed invalid. The Supreme Court's decision to grant a divorced Muslim woman an absolute right to maintenance was endorsed by some Muslim groups, such as the All India Shia Personal Law Board.

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