The Allahabad High Court recently observed that it is society’s dark face that Indian families are still shy to marry their son or daughter to someone from outside their caste.
A single bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi made the observation while hearing a combined appeal filed by a woman (victim) and her husband (accused) seeking to quash the chargesheet filed against the accused under sections 363, 366 IPC, and Section 7/8 of the POCSO Act.
Essentially, the accused, a Scheduled Caste, was charged in the case by the victim’s father, an OBC by caste, in February 2019. It was his claims that the accused persuaded his underage daughter away and sexually molested her.
Nevertheless, after the victim married the accused and they had a child in September 2022, they both approched the Court to have the criminal proceedings against the accused dismissed.
In this regard, the bench noted at the outset that the victim girl’s father is still fighting the case because of the inter-caste marriage, although knowing that his daughter has married the accused and is now the mother of a child.
Furthermore, noting that the victim’s father should have withdrawn the action for the sake of his daughter’s future, the Court issued the following remark:
“This is the clear case of our society’s dark face, where the families still feel shy to get their son or daughter to marry inter caste. In the instant case, the victim girl belongs to OBC community whereas the applicant boy belongs to SC community and out of sheer love and affection, they decided to marry at their teens. This wedlock blessed with a baby boy Shivansh having date of birth 16.09.2022. Despite of all these developments, the applicant is facing the futile exercise of holding trial. The court after hearing the parties, records its deepest anguish, whereby this social menace is so deep rooted that even after 75 years of independence, we are fighting the cases with his opponents on this score only,” the order reads.
In light of this, the bench stated that the law requires that when both parties agree and are happily live as husband and wife with their young child, there cannot be any hindrance to approving this marriage.
In this regard, the Court referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in Mafat Lal vs. State of Rajasthan. In the Mafat Lal case, the top court observed that an offence under Section 366 IPC will be attracted only when there is a violent coercion of marriage, whether by abduction or inducing a woman.
As a result, the single bench dismissed the charges filed by the girl’s father.
