Inter-caste marriage: SC asks police to protect newly-wed

The Supreme Court today asked the Haryana police to provide security to a newly-wed couple against whom a 'khap panchayat' in Faridabad has issued diktat for having an inter-caste marriage.

A vacation bench of justices Prafulla C Pant and Amitava Roy also asked Haryana Police and its Delhi counterpart to file response within four weeks to the petition filed by the couple.
Ashish, working in the nephrology department of AIIMS and his wife Bharti, who claims to be a major, had moved the apex court seeking protection from their kin, apprehending threat to their lives for having an inter-caste marriage.

The petition, filed through lawyer Sugriv Dubey, said that the girl was an adult and had solemnised marriage with Ashish, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, in an Arya Samaj temple as per Hindu rites against the wishes of her family.

The girl, hailing from Haryana, was residing "happily with her husband in Faridabad", the plea said and claimed that her parents, on the directions of a 'khap panchayat', were trying kill her and her husband.

Khap panchayats, prevalent in northern India, are village councils generally dominated by members of a single clan or caste.

The couple has claimed they had approached the police in Faridabad seeking protection, but did not get any support.

"The petitioner had intimated the SHO, Faridabad that they will be murdered as a khap of Haryana has decided to get them eliminated, but the police have not taken any step," the plea alleged.