Urging the Bombay high court to uphold the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA) 2006, over the Muslim personal law, Awaaz-e-Niswan, an NGO, filed an intervention application in the Bombay high court on Monday.
Zakia Begum, the mother of the 15-year-old whose marriage to a Ghatkopar mechanic Arshad Khan was stalled by the police intervention, moved the court through a habeas corpus petition, seeking the custody of her daughter who was taken to the AD Bawla Children’s Welfare Home in Versova by the Child Welfare Committee.
Zakia has contended that Muslim Personal Law recognises the age of attaining puberty or the age of 15 for adulthood for personal matters such as marriage, alimony and divorce. But under the PCMA, the marriage under the age of 18 is not permissible. The question before the court now is to decide which law prevails.
The intervention application submitted to the court by advocate Mihir Desai stated that the court must frame guidelines that enable child marriage prohibition officers under PCMA to actively monitor the health, education and personal well-being of the girl child in a marriage till she attains majority.
The girl and her family were all set to get her married to Arshad Khan, 21, on December 10 last year. However, a few hours before the marriage, officers from the Ghatkopar police station, raided the girl’s house in Aurangabad, on a complaint filed by her maternal uncle, Aarif Shaikh.
While several members of the girl’s family and also Khan’s were booked under the RCM Act, the girl was taken to the shelter home and is still put up there.
Zakia’s lawyer said Shaikh was forcibly trying to marry his son to her daughter and vindictively lodged a police complaint when the latter was being married to Khan. “Nobody in this country can force anyone,’’ said justice DB Bhosale.
The judge’s also sought to know why Khan was not booked for trying to marry a minor under the PCMA. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has also been made a party on the petition, but they were not represented before the court on Monday.
