By Our Correspondent
JODHPUR (RAJASTHAN)– A Muslim judge in Rajasthan’s Jodhpur city has annulled 50th child marriage in the state by passing a decree under the provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, which makes the child marriages voidable at the option of a contracting party. The judge’s initiative to declare child marriage as having been dissolved and his emphasis on stopping this practice have been widely praised as a crucial step for social reform.
The child marriage annulment, which has been taken up as a campaign in the backward regions of the desert state of Rajasthan, has touched the half-century mark with the recent judgment of the Jodhpur Family Court Judge, Muzaffar Choudhary. India’s first-ever decree of this kind was granted by a court in Rajasthan in 2012.
A provision in the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, of 2006, which replaced the Child Marriage Restraint Act, of 1929, has come to the rescue of girls unwilling to continue with their marriage. Section 3 of the 2006 Act makes child marriages voidable at the option of a contracting party being a child.
The case pertained to Kanchan, 18, belonging to Jodhpur district, who was trapped in a child marriage at the age of seven years and was facing the wrath of the caste panchayat. As a child bride, Kanchan underwent mental torture whenever her husband and in-laws visited her place. She has got freedom from the shackles of the unwanted matrimonial alliance following Choudhary’s judgment.
The daughter of a shopkeeper in Jodhpur’s rural area, Kanchan was being coerced into agreeing to her ‘gauna’, which meant she had to leave her parent’s home to consummate her marriage.
The teenage girl understood the enormity of her situation as she grew up and mustered the courage to use the legal process for the dissolution of childhood wedlock with the help of a voluntary organization.
The annulment of Kanchan’s marriage is the 50th case taken up by a Jodhpur-based organization, Saarthi Trust, as part of a unique campaign continuing since 2012, when the first-ever decree of this kind was granted by a court. Young girls are exploring new options in their lives and searching for new career avenues after the annulment of their matrimonial alliances, into which they were forced during childhood.
Choudhary observed in his detailed and reasoned judgment that the brunt of child marriage has to be borne by several generations to come. The judge said that the nuptial ties during childhood should be discouraged because they make an adverse impact on the girls as well as the society at large. “It is the concerted responsibility of everyone to stop innocent children being subjected to torture on the pretext of their wedding at a tender age,” Choudhary said.
Choudhary, who joined the Rajasthan Judicial Service in 2002, hails from a judicial family. His father, Justice Mohammed Asghar Ali Khan, was a judge in the Rajasthan High Court for several years, while his elder brother, Javed Choudhary, is at present a lawyer in the Jaipur Bench of Rajasthan High Court. Choudhary has served in various courts across the state during his 21-year-long service.
In the desert State of Rajasthan infamous for child marriages, the Saarthi Trust has taken a step ahead for the prevention of such alliances and moved the court to get these wedlocks declared null and void. In Kanchan’s case, the local caste panchayat, annoyed at the court case, ostracised her family and announced its boycott until it paid a hefty amount as a penalty.
A petition under Section 3 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act may be filed in the court before the person seeking annulment completes two years after attaining the age of majority at 18 years. While granting a decree, the court may also direct the so-called husband to pay maintenance to the girl until her remarriage.
It was not until 2012 that the first-ever decree in the country for child marriage annulment was passed in the case of Laxmi Sargara in Jodhpur. Laxmi’s parents had asked her to move out of the family home after her 18th birthday and go to her husband’s home, as she was married off at the age of one year.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5, released in 2022, 28.3% of the women in 20-24 years age group in the rural areas of Rajasthan were married before 18. Such women comprised 15.1% in the urban areas. Though child marriage in the state is a traditional custom that enjoys religious and cultural sanction, children often find the alliance unmatched when they grow up.
When the children want to call off the marriage, the village elders and caste panchayats put all kinds of roadblocks. The annulment of wedlock is a hard battle in Rajasthan’s feudal society. The strategies of getting the children married are also changed by getting the wedlock solemnized during the ‘Mosar’ ceremony marking the death of someone, instead of the Akshay Tritiya auspicious day.
Kanchan’s is the 50th instance of invalidation of child marriage through the court’s decree. The Saarthi Trust has been helping the girls, and also boys, in distress and assisted them in their rehabilitation when they explore career avenues after dissolution of their marriage. The trust has constituted a team of volunteers, who have been working on the two fronts of legal proceedings and capacity enhancement of girls for their rehabilitation.
To bring girls to the mainstream of society, they are supported with education and vocational training, while the camps are organized regularly in the villages to spread awareness about ill-effects of child marriage. In Kanchan’s case, besides the court proceedings, the trust officials also counselled the groom, who gave his consent for the annulment of marriage. The caste panchayat also agreed to withdraw the call for the boycott of Kanchan’s family when the activist approached its leaders and reasoned with them.
