Ahmedabad: A court in Palanpur in Banaskantha district of Gujarat has sentenced a government employee to one year in jail for trying to divorce his wife through 'triple talaq'. Public prosecutor Sanjay Joshi said that this is probably the first conviction in the triple talaq case in Gujarat. The court of Additional Senior Civil Judge GS Darji sentenced Deputy Engineer Sarfaraz Khan Bihari (45) to one year in jail and also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 on him.

An FIR was registered under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act, 2019 and relevant sections of the IPC after reaching the Palanpur (West) police station in September 2019, the victim's wife Shahnaz Banu. The court has sentenced Bihari to one year in jail under the 2019 Act, one year in jail under section 498 (A) of the IPC and six months in jail under section 323. All these sentences will run concurrently. It is noteworthy that the 2019 Act declares triple talaq illegal. Along with this, there is also a provision for imprisonment of up to three years and fine for the husband.

Sarfaraz Khan had married the complainant in the case in June 2012. They had a daughter. Advocate Govind Makwana said that Sarfaraz was transferred as a deputy engineer in the government's Sipu pipeline project, where he fell in love with a Hindu colleague. When Bihari's family came to know about the matter, the father of the complainant's wife met her father and they decided to send the couple to a separate rented house in Palanpur town. Makwana said that when they were staying there, the accused's mother and sister had come to meet them, where they got into a fight. During this the accused beat up his wife and uttered "talaq" thrice to divorce her.

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