A time-tested legal principle is that wherever the national law clashed with the personal law, the former would prevail. The Supreme Court reiterated this when it ruled that a divorce granted under the canonical law was not valid if it contravened the secular divorce law. The question arose when a Christian argued that the legal validity that triple talaq enjoyed should also be extended to divorces granted under the Christian personal law. Two wrongs won’t make one right. The courts have been increasingly veering round to the view that triple talaq had no validity in a secular country when it had no validity even in some Muslim-majority nations.
The petitioner had a point, people who were granted divorces under the canonical law, if they married again, faced the charge of bigamy. It is in this context that the apex court made the observation under review. The canonical laws vary from denomination to denomination. For instance, the Catholics have their own laws of divorce which are not applicable, say, to the Protestants or the Pentecostals. There are some churches which do not accept divorce except when it is proved that the man cannot consummate the marriage or he suffered from a mental illness which was not revealed before marriage. Another ground could be suppression of the fact that he or she was already married with living spouses.
Now it has become essential even for those who marry in churches to register their marriages in a court of law. After registration, matters like divorce and separation will be decided under the secular law. In the case of the Syrian Christians of Kerala, their Travancore Succession Act was found unacceptable by the Supreme Court. The Act allowed giving and accepting of dowry. Now it is illegal for everyone to accept or demand dowry. Various communities can have their own rituals while performing marriages but once a couple is married, they can separate only as per the law of the land.