SC notice over girl's marriageable age

NEW DELHI: When does a young girl come of age in India? A plethora of laws and recent rulings by high courts have made the question of a girl’s marriageable age highly contentious prompting Supreme Court on Thursday to seek a few critical clarifications from the Centre.

The complex issue drew the attention of the apex court as a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishanan and Justice R V Raveendran heard a petition filed by a distraught father whose 15-year-old daughter went missing and then claimed to have got married.

But despite the girl not being of marriageable age of 18, and also being a year short of the “age of consent for sex”, the father found himself unable to press rape charges against the husband because of contradictory rulings by courts.

Two high courts — Delhi and Andhra Pradesh — have ruled that 15 could be considered an “age of discretion” and that the marriage need not be annulled if the girl has consented.

The rulings run afoul of the minimum age laid down for marriage. Aware of the conundrum this raises, the Supreme Court issued a notice to Centre to try and find a way out.