INNOCENT VICTIM: The AIMPLB claims it wants to protect the girl child's interest

It took the cussedness of a jilted Hyderabad lover Mazhar Hussaini to push his entire community into rooting for child marriage. Way back in June 1997, when he was only 18, Hussaini moved the Andhra Pradesh High Court to frame charges under the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act, 1929-better known as the Sharda Act-against the parents of his cousin Fatima Mehezabin, 17, for marrying her off to another cousin. Hussaini persisted with the case and in November 2001, he finally won.

The quaint Sharda Act does not nullify the marriage but only penalises abettors with a three-month jail term. Mehezabin's parents and four others were found guilty. It was the inclusion of a government employee among the accused that set the cat among the pigeons, since he stood to lose retirement benefits. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) got into the act and fashioned a new line of defence. At its annual three-day meeting in Hyderabad in June, the board declared that since the Sharda Act preceded the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, it was not applicable to Muslims. It also filed an intervention application in the Supreme Court which is hearing an appeal by Mehezabin's relatives against the high court ruling.

"Why do courts rush to interpret the Koran when they are not equipped to do so?" Yusuf Muchchala, Muslim Law Board member

Community leaders, in tandem with the AIMPLB, have since been working overtime to justify its controversial move. Senior Supreme Court advocate Yusuf Muchchala, who is on the 30-member AIMPLB executive committee, argues that there is nothing retrograde about its stand. "Law cannot be an instrument of social engineering. The country has been passing laws without considering socioeconomic conditions of the Muslims, like the spread of education among them."

Chartered accountant Kamal Farooqui says the AIMPLB does not want to encourage child marriages but only wants to ensure that exit routes are not closed when a girl child is in a piquant situation like an unwanted pregnancy. The AIMPLB, he contends, was primarily guided by the lofty mission of providing an honourable life to girls orphaned by Gujarat riots. "This is not a retrograde step, but a positive response. Hindus should also be permitted to perform such marriages," says Farooqui.

Liberal Muslims, including women activists, are shocked. Yet they do not see this as a right moment to talk of reforms as "post-Gujarat the community is under siege". Says Syeda Hameed of the Muslim Women Forum: "We will not confront but convince the AIMPLB about the perils of its stand." Former MP Syed Shahabuddin says he would have opposed the decision if he had attended the Hyderabad conclave. Only Zuhara of Nisa, an NGO working in Malappuram district of Kerala, went on record opposing the AIMPLB.

Legal eagles, however, admit that what has really irked the AIMPLB is the manner in which both the Supreme Court and the high courts interpret the Muslim Women Act, 1986. "While the courts refrain from interpreting the Hindu scriptures, why do they rush to interpret the Koran when they are not equipped to do so?" asks Muchchala. But then Muslim personal law is not outside the Constitution and so not beyond judicial scrutiny.