Yami Gautam and Emraan Hashmi appear in Suparn Verma’s courtroom drama Haq, which had a respectable opening weekend of Rs 9 crore at the domestic box office. Although Yami’s character in the movie is called Shazia Bano, it asserts that the historic Shah Bano case ruling from the Supreme Court in the 1980s served as inspiration for her hardships. In the movie, Hashmi portrays Abbas Khan, Shazia’s husband. Danish Hussain portrays her encouraging father, Maulvi Basheer, while Sheeba Chaddha plays her attorney, Bela Jain.
What was the case of Shah Bano?
Shah Bano lived in Indore. After her husband, a lawyer, divorced her in 1978, she sued him in a local court to get maintenance. After ruling in her favor, the court ordered Khan to pay support of Rs 79 per month, which the High Court later increased to Rs 179. Following a protracted legal struggle, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor in 1985 and upheld the HC ruling. A five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court declared that Muslim women were legally entitled to maintenance.
Shah Bano’s son’s comments regarding the matter
Jameel Ahmad, the 75-year-old youngest son of Shah Bano, told The Quint in 2017 why his father had divorced his mother. He asserted that the second wife of his father was fourteen years his junior. “The two women used to quarrel continuously over insignificant matters. My father chose to divorce my mother because of this,” he stated.
Shah Bano, who was sixty years old at the time of her divorce, suffered high blood pressure and frequently became ill, according to Ahmad. “My mom battled for dignity. He added, “Even though he was financially well-off, he hardly cared for us. My father was very unfair to us.” He used to only come to see us on Eid. I once went to see my father on Eid after divorcing my mother. However, he abused me and smacked me.
Haq, which was inspired by the Shah Bano case, shows the protagonist’s identical path, although it doesn’t highlight the consequences of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in her favor in 1985. Many people, according to Ahmad, offered him and his brothers jobs and money in exchange for refusing the maintenance, but they refused. A rally adjacent to their Indore home even threatened them.
He even remembered how Shah Bano was invited to New Delhi by Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister at the time. She complied, and Ahmad went with her. According to Rajiv ji, the circumstances were quite dire. He requested that we decline the maintenance. He was with us for around fifteen minutes,” Ahmad said. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act was passed by the Rajiv Gandhi government in 1986 in response to complaints by Muslim organizations. The Shah Bano case ruling from the Supreme Court was overturned by this law.
