In a rare decision and perhaps the first-of-its-kind in the city, Bombay high court on Wednesday handed over the custody of a pregnant minor girl to her husband.
In a rare decision and perhaps the first-of-its-kind in the city, Bombay high court on Wednesday handed over the custody of a pregnant minor girl to her husband.
A division bench of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice AP Bhangale relied on the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, and held that after marriage the girl’s husband was her natural guardian.
The decision came in a case regarding the custody of 17-year-old Nitya (name changed). Nitya’s father Manik Jagtap had filed a habeas corpus petition in high court in November last year after she went missing.
On March 9, RAK Marg police found the girl with Gautam Dasgupta. The two were produced before the high court on March 13. The court observed that the girl had eloped with Dasgupta and married him of her own free will. Though no action was taken against Dasgupta, Nitya was sent to a juvenile observation home in Dongri till she completed 18 years of age in August. The court was also informed that the girl was pregnant.
Nitya, however, in her statement to the police on March 25 claimed that she only said that she wanted to be with her husband because she was under pressure. She also said that she wanted to live with her parents and wished to abort her child. Later, while speaking to the judges earlier this week, Nitya said she wanted to return to her husband.
The court, relying on a judgment passed by Justice Nazki and Justice S Ananda Reddy in the Andhra Pradesh high court in 2006 wherein a 13-year-old girl was allowed to stay with the man she had married, decided to let Nitya stay with her husband.
The judgment stated that the “legislatures have not done much to stop child marriages which are a menace. There are so many acts which make child marriage an offense but which do not make the child marriage a void marriage.”
It also said that “a marriage cannot be nullified and under the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the husband becomes a natural guardian of the minor girl.”
“There is nothing in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which would make a marriage illegal if it is solemnised as the bride has not completed the age of 18 years,” it stated.
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