Then the Congress government enacted a law with its most controversial aspect being the right to maintenance for the period of iddat after the divorce, and shifting the onus of maintaining her to her relatives or the Waqf Board.

[6][7] The case caused the Congress government, with its absolute majority, to pass the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, which diluted the judgment of the Supreme Court and restricted the right of Muslim divorcées to alimony from their former husbands for only 90 days after the divorce (the period of iddah in Islamic law).

[2][7][5] However, in later judgements including the Danial Latifi v. Union of India case and Shamima Farooqui v. Shahid Khan, the Supreme Court of India interpreted the act in a manner reassuring the validity of the case and consequently upheld the Shah Bano judgement, and The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act 1986 was nullified.

[11][12][13] In 1932, Shah Bano, a Muslim woman, was married to Mohammed Ahmad Khan, an affluent and well-known advocate in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and had five children from the marriage.

On 1 July 1980, on a revisional application of Bano, the High Court of Madhya Pradesh enhanced the amount of maintenance to ₹179.20 per month.

The matter was then heard by a five-judge bench composed of Chief Justice Chandrachud, Rangnath Misra, D. A. Desai, O. Chinnappa Reddy, and E. S. Venkataramiah.

The Supreme Court invoked Section 125 of Code of Criminal Procedure, which applies to everyone regardless of caste, creed, or religion.

[2][7][5][16] The Court also regretted that article 44 of the Constitution of India in relation to bringing of Uniform Civil Code in India remained a dead letter and held that a common civil code will help the cause of national integration by removing disparate loyalties to laws which have conflicting ideologies.

[16] The Shah Bano judgment, as claimed, became the centre of raging controversy, with the press turning it into a major national issue.

[17] The Shah Bano judgment elicited a protest from many sections of Muslims who also took to the streets against what they believed as an attack on their religion and their right to their own religious personal laws.

[23] The Bharatiya Janata Party regarded it as an 'appeasement' of the Muslim community and discriminatory to non-Muslim men and saw it as a "violation of the sanctity of the country's highest court".

[25] Lawyer and former law minister of India, Ram Jethmalani has termed the act as "retrogressive obscurantism for short-term minority populism".

However, their opposition to the reforms was based on the argument that no similar provisions would be applied for the Muslims on the claim that they weren't sufficiently advanced.

The case became a milestone in Muslim women's fight for equal rights in matters of marriage and divorce in regular courts.

[2] The Supreme Court tried to maintain a balancing act, attempting to uphold Muslim women's rights without addressing the constitutionality of gender and religious discrimination in personal law.