Marriage without consent: SC wants security for Karnataka woman

The Supreme Court on Wednesday came to the rescue of a 26-yearold Karnataka woman, who alleged that she had been married off without her consent, asked the Centre and the Delhi Police to grant her protection.

The woman, who is currently in Delhi and is being helped by Delhi Commission for Women, has sought striking down of sections 5 and 7 of the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) to the extent that they fail “to prescribe free, fair, valid prior consent of the parties to a marriage”.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud made clear that it will treat this petition as “habeas corpus” and not deal with the constitutionality of the provisions of the Act as sought by senior advocate Indira Jaising, representing the aggrieved woman.

At the outset, Jaising said she is an engineer and seeks to quash her marriage conducted on March 14, 2018, as it was solemnised without her free, fair and valid prior consent.

The woman, daughter of an influential politician from Karnataka, asked the bench to consider the legality of the HMA provisions as they were silent on the requirement of a girl’s explicit consent to make a marriage valid.

The court said such a declaration that lack of explicit consent would render the marriage invalid can be decided through appropriate proceedings emanating from family court.