In a landmark judgment today, the Madras High Court today banned Sharia courts functioning inside mosque premises in Tamil Nadu.

Passing the order based on a Public Interest Litigation filed by U.K.-based NRI Abdur Rahman, the Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R. Madhavan, said the State Government should ensure that Sharia courts do not function and file a status report on the same within four weeks.

The PIL stated that the Sharia courts acted as councils to resolve property and matrimonial disputes and gave the impression in the minds of Muslims that the decisions passed by the council had religious binding among them. Once a case is presented to the Sharia court, the aggrieved parties are called over the phone to present themselves before it.

Abdur Rahman, who had earlier approached one of such court, with the hope to reunite with his wife was forced to sign a letter of divorce and was made to pronounce ‘talaq’.

The Supreme Court (SC) had earlier declared such Sharia courts running from the mosque premises as illegal which have by far dealt with such disputes that run in hundreds. Shariat is a set of law derived from the Quran and the Hadiths and have a binding on the followers of Islamic faith.