SC: Consent of Family Not Required When Two Adults Agree To Marry

Consent of famil: The Supreme Court of India on Friday held that two adults can marry each other without the consent of  family, friends, community, etc.

Justice Sanjay Kaul and Justice Hrishikesh Roy stressed that a person's right to marry should not succumb to societal norms of "class honour" or "group thinking".

The Supreme Court also announced that police authorities will work on formulating guidelines and training programmes for dealing with  'socially sensitive cases'.

Consent of family friends in adult marriages

This order was given after a man filed a missing person complaint against his daughter who had married a man without informing her father never about it. After the investigating officers came to know about the girl's whereabouts, they insisted that she appear before the Murgod police station. They wanted to record her statement to close the case once and for all.

That's when the couple decided to approach the Supreme Court on the matter. They alleged that the investigating officer (IO) wanted the girl to return or else they would file a kidnapping case against her husband.

"The way forward to the police authorities is to not only counsel the current IOs but device a training programme to deal with such cases for the benefit of the police personnel," the bench said.

Finally, the Supreme Court bench gave a judgement which took the couple's interests into consideration. They said that adults choosing their spouses can differ from previous societal norms which stressed taking consent of the caste and community. The court then said that this is the only way by which community tensions will reduce in inter-caste marriages. "But these youngsters face threats from the elders and the courts have been coming to the aid of these youngsters," said the bench.

Supreme Court Rejects The Petition

The Supreme Court rejected the father's petition and quoted Dr BR Ambedkar's Annihilation of Caste, saying, "I am convinced that the real remedy is inter-marriage. The fusion of blood can alone create the feeling of being kith and kin, and unless this feeling of kinship, of being kindred, becomes paramount, the separatist feeling—the feeling of being aliens—created by caste will not vanish."

Allahabad High Court not in favour of religious conversion for the sake of marriage 

A few weeks ago, the Allahabad High court had dismissed a writ petition filed by a couple seeking protection. The woman who was originally Muslim had converted to Hinduism to marry her partner. The court had dismissed a similar case in 2014 also. consent of family