Interfaith marriage: Allahabad HC quashes FIR, says adult woman has right to live as she wishes
Allahabad,
Dec
28:
The
Allahabad
High
Court
has
quashed
an
FIR
lodged
against
a
Muslim
man
over
a
marriage
with
a
Hindu
woman,
ruling
that
she
had
a
right
to
live
her
life
on
her
own
terms.
Upholding
the
interfaith
marriage
in
a
case
from
Uttar
Pradesh's
Etah
district,
a
bench
of
Justice
Pankaj
Naqvi
and
Vivek
Agarwal
said
the
woman
is
an
adult
according
to
her
high
school
certificate.
It said the woman, Shikha, has the right to live life according to her own wishes and terms and she has expressed her desire to stay with her husband. The bench said she is free to do so.
The judgment was delivered on December 18 on a habeas corpus petition.
The Kotwali Dehat police in Etah district had registered a case in September against the man, Salman alias Karan, under section 366 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with "inducing" or abducting a woman to compel her into marriage.
On December 7, Etah's Chief Judicial Magistrate ordered that Shikha should be handed over to the child welfare committee. The committee then sent her to her parents the next day against her wishes.
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The high court said the Chief Judicial Magistrate's order and action of the child welfare committee did not follow legal provisions.
Shikha was produced before the high court on its directions.
The court said that according to the high school certificate, her date of birth is October 4, 1999 and she is an adult.
The matter came up before the high court against the backdrop of a flurry of cases registered by the UP Police under the state's new ordinance which punishes "forcible" or "fraudulent" religious conversions, including those involving marriages.
The Etah case, however, was registered before the new law came into being.