Adults choosing their life partner can’t succumb to class honour or group thinking: SC

The Supreme Court said that adult boys and girls choosing their life partner cannot succumb to the concept of class honour or group thinking.

The court asked the police authorities to lay down some guidelines and training programmes to handle such socially-sensitive cases.

“Educated younger boys and girls are choosing their life partners which, in turn, is a departure from the earlier norms of society where caste and community play a major role," a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy said.

The court said it is a progressive outlook that may reduce caste and community tensions brought out by inter-caste marriages.

The bench said: “We are fortified in our view by earlier judicial pronouncements of this court clearly elucidating that the consent of the family or the community or the clan is not necessary once the two adult individuals agree to enter into a wedlock and that their consent has to be piously given primacy.”

Echoing B R Ambedkar's views that inter-caste marriage can break casteism, the bench noted that intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy, which was inviolable and even matters of faith would have the least affect on them.

“The right to marry a person of choice was held to be integral in Article 21 of the Constitution," the top court said.

A missing person's complaint was lodged on October 14, 2020, in Karnataka's Belagavi by the father of a girl, who is an MA, B Ed, after she eloped and married an assistant professor, hailing from Uttar Pradesh, without informing the father.

The investigating officer, after learning about their marriage, insisted that the girl should appear in person at the police station to record a statement to close the case, and if she fails to do so, there was a possibility of her husband being charged with kidnapping.

Faced with dire consequences, the couple approached the top court, which criticised the police officer’s conduct that put the girl under threat of action.

The top court said the choice of an individual is an inextricable part of dignity, for dignity cannot be thought of where there is erosion of choice. “Such a right or choice is not expected to succumb to the concept of ‘class honour’ or ‘group thinking’”, the top court said.

The court quashed the FIR lodged with the Murgod police station.

The bench emphasised that the girl’s family should accept the marriage and re-establish social interaction with the couple. “Under the garb of caste and community, to alienate the child and the son-in-law will hardly be a desirable social exercise," it said.

The court also directed the Karnataka police department to not only counsel the current IOs but device a training programme to deal with such cases for the benefit of the police personnel.

"We expect the police authorities to take action in this behalf in the next eight weeks to lay down some guidelines and training programmes on how to handle such socially-sensitive cases," the bench said.

The bench quoted B R Ambedkar, who said, “where society is cut asunder, marriage as a binding force becomes a matter of urgent necessity. The real remedy for breaking caste is inter-caste marriage. Nothing else will serve as the solvent of caste.”