A day after the Supreme Court's landmark verdict addressing Muslim women's legal right to maintenance, Jammu & Kashmir National Conference Women's Wing President Shameema Firdous sparked controversy by stating that "for Muslims, the first constitution is the Quran, and we must go by the Quran."

"Supreme Court's ruling is a good thing but this is as per our Muslim law, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir which is Muslim majority state. The law was already existing and divorced women were getting the maintenance," she said.

"But I say one more thing here, we will not accept anything that challenges our Muslim law. We will not have anything to be challenged which is written in the Quran that Allah has sent to us but SC's decision is welcomed," Firdous added.

Earlier on Wednesday, a bench comprising Justices BV Nagarathna and Augustine George Masih delivered separate but concurrent judgments upholding Muslim women's rights. This followed a case where a Muslim man (the petitioner) challenged a Telangana High Court directive to pay Rs 10,000 interim maintenance to his former wife.

"We are hereby dismissing the criminal appeal with the major conclusion that Section 125 CrPC would be applicable to all women and not just married women," Justice Nagarathna said while pronouncing the verdict.

The top court also held that if a Muslim woman gets divorced during the pendency of an application under Section 125 CrPC, she can take recourse to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019.

This judgment is significant as the Supreme Court's landmark decision in the Shah Bano case held that Section 125 CrPC is a secular provision applicable to Muslim women as well. However, this was nullified by the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, whose validity was upheld in 2001.

Meanwhile, cleric Sufiyan Nizami said, "In Islam, it is expected from both husband and wife to continue their relation but if they decide to separate they can do through divorce. This concept is just to save the rights of women. But as per the tradition of Islam, there's an 'Iddat' period of around 3 months in which the man has to pay alimony and after that he doesn't have to pay as per Islam as they are not together now."

"Those experts in law will review the SC verdict on this. There's a technical issue in this case and we need to study it. Law experts should look into it and SC should review this as it's a religious matter as our moral values don't allow us to pay alimony after the period of Iddat," Nizami added.

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