Validity of marriage no ground for denial: HC

While disposing of Jalandhar woman’s plea, court directs authorities to take steps to protect couple’s life & liberty IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS, CONFLICTING JUDGMENTS HAVE EMERGED ON PROTECTION TO RUNAWAY COUPLES

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has said the question over validity of a marriage cannot be a ground for denial of protection sought by a couple who have married against the wishes of parents.

The high court bench of justice JS Puri said this while dealing with a plea in which a coordinate bench on protection plea of a Jalandhar woman, who converted from Islam to Hinduism to marry a Hindu man, had asked whether the execution of an affidavit is sufficient for her conversion. The query was posed to their lawyer on May 12 and he was asked to address arguments on May 17.

The plea said, she executed an affidavit on April 28 declaring that she has converted to the Hindu religion. She married the boy the same day. The court had asked whether, execution of an affidavit is sufficient to convert to Hindu religion.

On May 17, before Justice Puri, the petitioners’ counsel had submitted that their prayer was confined only to granting protection of life and liberty and the validity of the marriage was not the subject matter. The lawyer had also referred to a 2014 judgment in which a division bench had held that even in the absence of such validation, the state was obligated to protect their life and liberty.

“The scope of the present petition is only regarding the protection of life and liberty of the petitioners and, therefore, the validity of the marriage cannot be a ground for denial of such protection,” the bench of justice JS Puri said while disposing of the Jalandhar couple plea and asking authorities to take steps to protect their lives and liberty.

In past two weeks conflicting judgments have been reported on protection to runaway couples. On May 11 one of the benches observed that the “entire social fabric of the society will get disturbed” if the plea for protection from a live-in couple is accepted, the other bench termed live in relationships “morally and socially not acceptable” and dismissed the plea.

These judgments were followed by two other benches ruling the opposite. While a bench on May 18 held that live-in relationship is not prohibited nor does it amount to commission of any offence, another bench had observed that live-in relationships may not be acceptable to all, but could not be termed illegal. Hence, the denial of protection would be mockery of justice.