Inter-caste marriages will possibly reduce caste & community tensions: SC

New Delhi: Inter-caste marriages will possibly reduce caste and community tensions, the Supreme Court said while noting that the educated younger boys and girls are nowadays choosing their life partners which is a departure from earlier societal norms.

The top court said youngsters face threats from the elders and the courts have been coming to the aid of these youngsters.

It said the way forward to the police authorities is to counsel the Investigating Officers (IO) and lay down some guidelines and training programmes on how to handle such socially sensitive cases.

The remarks came by a bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Hrishikesh Roy which quashed an FIR lodged by the parents of the girl, who had married a boy of her choice against the wishes of elders, at Belgavai district of Karnataka.

The top court in its recent verdict said it hopes that the parents of the girl will have a better sense to accept the marriage and re-establish social interaction not only with her but even with her husband.

That, in our view, is the only way forward. Under the garb of caste and community to alienate the child and the son-in-law will hardly be a desirable social exercise, the bench told the parents of the girl, who has sought quashing of the FIR lodged against her.

The top court said 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. Possibly, this is the way forward where caste and community tensions will reduce by such intermarriage but in the meantime, these youngsters face threats from the elders and the Courts have been coming to the aid of these youngsters.

Referring to earlier verdicts of the top courts, the bench said it has been held that the consent of the family or the community or the clan is not necessary once the two adult individuals agree to enter into wedlock and that their consent has to be piously given primacy.

The bench added that it has been held in the 2017 verdict of the top court that the choice of an individual is an inextricable part of dignity, for dignity cannot be thought of where there is the erosion of choice.

Intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy, which is inviolable and even matters of faith would have the least effect on them. The right to marry a person of choice was held to be integral to Article 21 of the Constitution of India, the bench noted, while referring to Hadiya case verdict of 2018. Continued on P6