In 1985, Supreme court of India gave a judgement in favour of a Muslim divorcee Shah Banu that her husband should give alimony to her. Muslim fundamentalists in India treated it as an encroachment in Muslim Personal Law and protested against it. Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, agreed to their demands and cited the gesture as an example of "secularism". In 1986, the Congress (I) party, which had an absolute majority in Parliament at the time, passed an act that nullified the Supreme Court's judgment in the Shah Bano case. The Shah Bano case generated tremendous heat in India. It proved that fundamentalist minorities can exert pressure on government and judicial decisions. The mainstream media disapproved of the decision. The opposition reacted strongly against the Congress party's policies (which, according to BJP, reflect "Pseudo-secularism".)
The case has led to Muslim women receiving a large, one-time payment from their husbands during the period of iddat, instead of a maximum monthly payment of 500 Rs (around 10 US dollars per month) - an upper limit which has since been removed. Cases of women getting lump sum payments for lifetime maintenance are becoming common.
