Call it a rakshasa vivah, the Supreme Court feels such marriages are perfectly legal as long as the couple are of marriageable age.
NEW DELHI: Call it a rakshasa vivah (demon-style marriage) or elopement before marriage as Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi’s daughter Srija did recently, the Supreme Court (SC) feels such marriages are perfectly legal as long as the couple are of marriageable age.
Parents cannot beat, threaten or keep their daughter in illegal confinement if she has attained the legally-valid marriageable age of 18 years, the apex court said.
“There is nothing wrong in a girl eloping to get married according to her choice after she has attained the age of 18 years.
“In the Mahabharata, we come across several rakshasa marriages, with Lord Krishna forcibly carrying away Rukmini to get married,” a bench of justices CK Thakker and Markandeya Katju observed, amidst laughter.
As per mythology, gods, demons and kings used to abduct would-be brides and marry them to prove their chivalry.
The apex court passed the observation while granting bail to Cauverappa, who was sentenced to one year in prison by the Karnataka high court for abducting a 19-year-old girl for marriage.
Cauverappa was arrested on the complaint of the girl’s parents, but a trial court acquitted him. However, the Karnataka high court convicted him, after which he appealed before the apex court.
Ordering the accused’s release on bail, the Supreme Court admitted the appeal filed by Cauverappa challenging his conviction and sentence of one year.
The accused submitted that the girl had crossed 19 years and had voluntarily married him, hence his conviction by the trial court was erroneous in law.
On his submission, the court said, “There is nothing wrong if a girl wants to elope. A girl has the right in this country to elope and marry if she has attained the age of 18 years.”
It further said parents and relatives cannot beat, coerce or keep in confinement such a girl if she wants to elope.
The apex court’s observations come in the backdrop of the real-life love saga staged by reel-life Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi’s daughter Srija (19) who married Sirish Bharadwaj
(22), her lover of four years, against her family’s wishes.
Srija, a student of chartered accountancy, married Sirish at a secret ceremony at an Arya Samaj temple in Hyderabad on October 17.
After the marriage she fled Hyderabad and moved the Delhi high court apprehending threat to life from the actor’s family. The high court subsequently directed the police to provide adequate protection to the couple.
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