NEW DELHI: Seven months after declaring instant triple talaq illegal, the Supreme Court (SC) today granted to scrutinize the constitutional validity of polygamy(the practice or custom of having more than one wife or husband at the same time.) and 'nikah halala' in the Muslim community.

The SC noted that the five-judge bench which examined instant triple talaq - and pronounced their order in August last year - had kept release the issues of polygamy and 'nikah halala'.

The SC today issued notices to the Centre and the Law Commission asking them to make their stand clear on a batch of petitions asking the two practices be to put an end too. Polygamy is the practice of being married to more than one woman. Nikah-halala is a practice intended to curtail divorce. Under it, a man cannot remarry his former wife without Iddat.

In this process, a man cannot remarry his former wife if she does not go through the process of marrying someone else, carry out that marriage, getting divorced and observing a separation period called Iddat.

One petitioner, a Hyderabad-based lawyer, has argued that while Muslim law agrees to a man to have multiple wives by way of the temporary marriages or polygamy, the same permission is not extended to women and therefore the law violates the fundamental rights of Muslim women.

Another petition, filed by a Delhi-based woman, has said that by virtue of the Muslim Personal Law, section 494 of IPC (marrying again during lifetime of husband or wife) was rendered irrelevant to Muslims and no married woman from the community has the avenue to file a complaint against her husband for the offence of bigamy.