Right To Marry and Protection by High Courts

Overview:

Though marriage is a personal decision of two adult consenting parties, often this is not the case. Many times such couples find themselves at the crossroads and are pressured into their families’ demands or succumb to honour killings. In such cases, it becomes more than necessary to protect such couples with the help of law. This is when protection from police through High Court is sought for these married couples.

The procedure to get protection:

To avail protection from the High Court in such cases, a couple must provide their lawyer with the following documents-

Photographs of Marriage
Marriage Certificate
Original Adhar Card of both the parties (husband & Wife)
Original Date of Birth Proofs of both the parties (High School Mark Sheets or any equivalent document)
Adhaar Card of two witnesses

After the lawyer is convinced that the marriage is lawful, a petition is filed in the respective State’s High Court for protection of the couple under Section 482 Cr.P.C. for directing the police officials to give police protection to the couple. It is also asked to issue a direction to the families of the couple to not to interfere with the liberty and life of the in any manner and against their wishes and to their detriment by using force on them or by adopting unlawful means and further for directing the families not to harass the couple.

This procedure protects a runaway married couple by providing them police protection by the High Court. This is a procedure to which law protects couples from harassment of the couple or honour killing. This procedure ensures that not only the life of a married couple is protected, life and liberty of their relatives who might be in danger because of parents of husband or wife is also protected

Case Laws

The Supreme Court in Deepika And Another vs State Of U.P. And 3 Others [1] where it was alleged by the petitioners that the father of the petitioner had influenced the Senior Superintendent of Police, Hapur, for harassment/torture of the petitioners, on account of which the police personnel of Police Station Hapur came to the petitioners’ house and harassed them as well as family members of the petitioner held that:

“It is distressing to note that in spite of the said direction of the Supreme Court, the Police is ignoring the law and the direction issued to them by the Apex Court. Thus, if any police officer harasses young couple, who are major and are living together voluntarily, such Police officer will be at the risk of disobeying the judgment of the Supreme Court in Bhagwan Dass. If the police officer is satisfied that they are major, then he has no “authority to interfere with the living of the boy or girl and any such complaint made against the boy or girl by the parents should be dealt with law.”

As per the observations of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in a recent judgement has categorically held that such type of marriages will certainly give an end to the demand for dowry and the casteism system in the society in the such like situation. The concerned police should ensure that such persons who have performed their marriage with their own sweet will, should not be harassed at the instance of parents of the girl and if the police failed to take action on the matter, the police should be taken to task.

The Supreme Court in Shakti Vahini vs Union Of India [2] while asserting the role of Police in the prevention of crimes like honour killings stated that:

“Ultimately, the question which ought to consider and assess by this Court is whether the State police machinery could have possibly prevented the said occurrence. The response is certainly a “yes”. The State is duty-bound to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens, and an inherent aspect of Article 21 of the Constitution would be the freedom of choice in marriage. Such offences are resultant of the State’s incapacity or inability to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens.”