Karnataka High Court orders child marriage prohibition warnings at temples and marriage halls

The Karnataka High Court recently directed that notices displaying the criminal liability that child marriage attracts be prominently placed in temples, marriage halls and similar venues. [Manjunatha N & Ors v. State of Karnataka]

Justice M Nagaprasanna held,

“Wherefore, the Child Development Project officers shall ensure that awareness of criminal liability is displayed at every venue, where marriages are ordinarily performed. Temple Authorities, marriage halls, and similar establishments shall display notices stating that marriage of a person below the 18 years of age is prohibited, by law and attracts criminal consequences."

The judgment stated that Section 10 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, which prescribes punishment for solemnising a child marriage, casts a wide net of culpability.

"It does not confine responsibility to the contracting adult, but upon whoever performs, conducts, directs or abets a child marriage becomes equally liable. The priest who solemnises the ceremony, the relative who arranges it, the organizer who facilitates it, all stand within the sweep of this provision."

The case involved a 16-year-old girl (now 20), who was married to a 27- year-old man in the presence of both families. The groom as well as his parents and the parents of the bride moved the High Court to quash a case filed against them for solemnising the child marriage in 2021.

The Court noted a disturbing pattern in violation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and the 2006 Act.

"Parents of both the boy and the girl, acting in concert and often under the mistaken cloak of social propriety, solemnize marriages of girls before they attain the age of 18 years. What is presented as a familial consent, is in truth a surrender of childhood."

It underscored that neutralising the offence on the basis of domestic peace after marriage would render the abolition of child marriage illusive.

"Criminal liability is measured at the moment of commission, not neutralised by the subsequent domestic peace. To accept otherwise would be to convert penal law into a matter of retrospective validation through sentiment. Parents who ought to bless their daughters with encouragement, education and empowerment, instead bless them with premature matrimony. If such conduct were to receive judicial indulgence, the eradication of child marriage would remain an illusive aspiration. This Court, therefore, cannot and will not extend its protective arm, to those who indulge in marriage of a child."

The Court further enlisted the demerits of child marriage for the girl, including and not limited to exposing her to emotional, social and economic exploitation.

"A girl married before 18 does not merely enter matrimony, she exits opportunity. The promise of education fades into abstraction. The dream of academic or professional advancement remains precisely that, a dream."

While reiterating that child marriage is not a benign cultural practice, but a denial of basic human rights, the Court rejected the quashing petition.

Advocate Sadakath U represented the Petitioners.

Special Public Prosecutor BN Jagadeesha represented the State.

[Read order]