- are fathers sole custodians of 17yr old girls?
- why can't 17yr olds get married or have a lover?
- They suddenly bloom into MATURE women at the age of 18 or what ?? no natural maturing process ??
- when the rest of the world has reduced the marital age, why can't india do the same ?? what century is this?
- a 17 year old girl elopes, gets pregnant and wishes to live with her hubby. Police send her with the hubby and now court is rapping the police ppl ... and the court is sending her off to a DESTITUTE HOME !!!
- why prefer the father MAN vs the HUSBAND man ??
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HC frowns on marriage in police stations
A Subramani, TNN Sep 8, 2013, 06.29AM IST
CHENNAI: Police-blessed weddings in police stations may become a thing of the past. The Madras high court has ruled that police are not supposed to perform marriages in police stations and that they could be added as accused in such cases.
"It has become a fashion for police personnel to perform marriages at police stations, in the presence of senior officers," said a division bench of Justice S Rajeswaran and Justice A Arumughaswamy, passing orders on a habeas corpus petition filed by K Thangaraj, whose minor daughter eloped with her lover and then returned at the advanced stage of pregnancy.
The judges said, "This court views seriously the attitude of police officials, and they are not supposed to perform marriages in police stations. In such matters (as the present one where a minor was allowed to go with her lover's family) it is for the complainants to arraign police officials as accused along with others."
Thangaraj said that soon after his 17-year-old daughter, studying in Class 12 in Coimbatore district, went missing on December 31, 2012, he lodged a complaint with the Thudiyalur police. On coming to know that she had gone with a youth from the same area, he named him and his parents in the complaint. Since no action was taken, he moved the high court.
The couple then appeared before the deputy superintendent of police in Coimbatore. As she was pregnant, the officer sent her to her husband's home though she was a minor. Taking serious note of the officer's conduct, the bench said he should not have sent the minor girl away when the case was still pending in court.
If police officers come across such a complaint from the father of a minor girl, who is said to have been kidnapped or missing from home, and they suspect a case of elopement, it is for the officers to register a case according to law, and not simply mention it as a case of 'girl missing'.
Police must take coercive steps to trace the culprits keeping the interests of the girl in mind, the bench said, adding: "If such a procedure had been adopted, this type of crimes would not have happened. It is pathetic that the minor girl, after being married to a boy aged about 20 years, is now in the advanced stage of pregnancy with no one available to look after her."
Blaming it on the carelessness of the investigating authorities, the judges said: "Higher officials must give suitable instructions to investigating officers concerned, that if they receive such complaints, they must register a case as per the allegations in the complaint and it must be investigated in accordance with law."
The judges then said the court was helpless and there was no other go except sending the minor girl to a government home as she had refused to go with her parents.
Sending the girl to a welfare home for women at Sanganoor in Coimbatore district, the judges asked police and other authorities to ensure that she received all medical facilities there. In case she opts for private medical treatment, it would be provided to her at her own cost, they said.
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Vinayak
Father of a lovely daughter, criminal in the eyes of a wife, son of an compassionate elderly mother, old timer who hasn't given up, Male, activist
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