The Madras High Court has called for creating a mechanism to ascertain if women consent to marry life convicts voluntarily or if they were being coerced due to religious, communal or other such reasons.
Justices N. Kirubakaran and V.M. Velumani felt that it could be mandatory for the National Commission for Women and the State Commissions for Women to ascertain the reason behind women agreeing to marry life convicts.
The judges suo motu included the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, the National Commission for Women and Tamil Nadu State Commission for Women as respondents to a case and sought their response to the issue.
The judges raised the issue during the hearing of a habeas corpus petition filed by the 33-year-old wife of a 44-year-old convict lodged in the Central Prison at Coimbatore. She had sought a month’s leave for her husband.
The court was told that the convict J. Aslam had been convicted and sentenced to life by a Fast Track Court in Madurai on May 2, 2003. Despite undergoing incarceration for over 17 years, he got married to the petitioner after coming out on leave for a day about 10 years ago.
After marriage, the convict had returned to prison on the same day and since then the petitioner had been residing with her mother-in-law. Wondering how a woman could agree to marry a person with whom she could not spend time at all, the judges feared it could be because of coercion.
“Whenever a girl marries a convict, her life gets crippled and she is psychologically and physiologically affected apart from the stigma she has to bear. A normal lady always needs moral support and physical companionship of her husband,” the Bench said.
Observing that they had come across many cases of women having married life convicts, the judges said it would be better if the reason behind the women’s consent was ascertained by statutory bodies before the marriage could be performed.
They directed Assistant Solicitor General G. Karthikeyan and Additional Public Prosecutor M. Prabhavathi to take notices on behalf of the National Commission as well as the State Commission and ascertain their views on the issue by August 27.
