NEW DELHI: Five years after striking down triple talaq, the Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Union government's response to a PIL seeking to enforce bigamy as an offence on all citizens irrespective of their religion and agreed to take up a bunch of PILs challenging the validity of polygamy and nikah-halala. The bench issued notice to the Centre and asked it to file a reply affidavit. If the relief sought in PIL against bigamy is allowed by the apex court, then it would automatically ban polygamy permitted under Sharia law. On August 22, 2017, a five-judge bench had declared triple talaq, or instant divorce among Muslims, unconstitutional while deciding on a petition filed by Shayara Bano. Almost exactly five years later, another five-judge bench of Justices Indira Banerjee, Hemant Gupta, Surya Kant, MM Sundresh and Sudhanshu Dhulia agreed to take up adjudication of other alleged discriminatory practices against Muslim women on a PIL filed by advocate Ashwini Upadhyay along with six similar petitions filed by Muslim women and a Muslim organisation. When the court was in the midst of finalising the schedule for hearing, advocate Vishnu Jain drew the bench's attention to a PIL filed by a woman petitioner, Kiran Singh, who has sought a direction from the court to enforce Section 494 of Indian Penal Code that punishes bigamy - a man marrying for a second time during the subsistence of his first marriage - against all citizens irrespective of their religion. Jain said the SC has not yet sought response from the Union government on this PIL. The bench has issued notice to the Centre on the matter. The PIL by Upadhyay and six other Muslim women also challenged the practice of nikah-halala enforced against Muslim women. As per this practice, if a divorced woman wants to get back to her legally separated Muslim husband, she has to marry someone else and get a divorce to remarry her previous husband. The petitioners alleged that this is frequently misused by Muslim men to physically and mentally exploit women. While senior advocate Shyam Divan argued for Upadhyay, his wife and additional solicitor general Madhavi Divan represented the Union government. "There are a host of practices under challenge - mainly those which were not dealt in Shayara Bano (triple talaq judgment). These left over issues include nikah-halala, polygamy and other forms of talaqs. Those have to be decided by the Supreme Court in these petitions," Madhavi said. An SC bench headed by Justice Sanjay K Kaul is already dealing with a PIL filed by Upadhyay challenging the validity of talaq-e-hasan and mechanism to curb its misuse which left financially handicapped women destitute. The Justice Kaul-led bench has also agreed to adjudicate what should be an adequate 'mehr' amount to be paid. Mehr is also considered as part of maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code,1973. In absence of clarity about the mehr amount under Muslim personal law, different HC and the Supreme Court in different cases rendered different conceptions related to mehr. In case of Sarla Mudgal during the subsistence of his first marriage, then he would be liable to be prosecuted under Section 494 of the IPC.