Uniform minimum age for marriage: SC decides to examine plea to transfer to itself cases pending in HCs

The petitioner argued that the plea had been filed to ‘secure gender justice, gender equality, and dignity of women’.

February 02, 2021 01:43 pm | Updated 01:46 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

Couples at the mass wedding in Udaipur. Photo for representational purpose.

Couples at the mass wedding in Udaipur. Photo for representational purpose.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday decided to examine a plea to transfer to itself cases pending in the Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts to declare a “uniform minimum age” for marriage.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde issued notice to the government on the plea by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who argued that the transfer plea had been filed to “secure gender justice, gender equality, and dignity of women”.

Various laws state that the minimum age for getting married should be 18 for women and 21 for men. “Petitioner is compelled to approach this court as more PILs may be filed in other High Courts seeking ‘Uniform Minimum Age of Marriage for Men and Women’. Therefore, to avoid multiplicity of the litigations and conflicting views on the interpretation of Articles 14, 15, 21 and judgments on gender justice and gender equality, the Court may be pleased to transfer these PILs and decide them collectively,” said the transfer plea filed under Article 139A of the Constitution.

The plea also sought a direction to the Centre to take appropriate steps to remove the anomalies in the minimum age of marriage and make it ‘gender-neutral, religion-neutral and uniform for all citizens’ in the spirit of the fundamental rights of equality and right to life and international conventions.

The minimum age of marriage shall be 21 years for all citizens, it said.

While men were permitted to get married at the age of 21, women were married when they were just 18, it said.

‘Patriarchal stereotypes’

“The distinction is based on patriarchal stereotypes, has no scientific backing, perpetrates de jure and de facto inequality against women, and goes completely against the global trends,” it said.

The differential bar discriminated against women, thus contravened the fundamental principles of gender equality, gender justice, and dignity of women.

The petitioner said more than 125 countries in the world had a uniform age of marriage for men and women.

It also referred to relevant provisions of the Indian Christian Marriage Act, the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, the Special Marriage Act, the Hindu Marriage Act, and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act. It said that they were “responsible for this discriminatory bar.”

Under Section 60 of the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872, the man intending to be married shall not be under 21 years, and the age of the woman planning to be married shall not be under 18 years, it said.

As per the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act of 1936, a man’s age had to be 21 years, and a women had to complete 18, it said.

The other laws also had the same anomalies concerning the age of marriage for men and women, it said.

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