Lekha G –
The Bombay High Court rejected a Habeas Corpus petition filed by the father of a woman stating that the decision to choose a marital partner solely rests on the individual.
A Bench of Justices VK Jadhav and SD Kulkarni was hearing a petition filed by Junned Ahmed Mujib Khan seeking to hand over the custody of his daughter Khaleda Subiya to him and invoke “Parens patriae” jurisdiction on the ground that the girl is a vulnerable adult.
Rejecting the same the Court ruled, “The exercise of that jurisdiction (parens patriae) should not transgress into the area of determining the suitability of the partners to a marital tie. That decision rests exclusively with the individuals themselves. Neither the State nor society can intrude into that domain.”
The Court also relied on the Supreme Court judgment in the Hadiya case that held that the “Parens patriae” doctrine could only be exercised in exceptional circumstances in cases where persons are incapable of exercising free will.
“The intimacies of marriage, including the choices which individuals make on whether or not to marry and on whom to marry, lie outside the control of the State. Courts as upholders of constitutional freedoms must safeguard these freedoms,” the Court added.
The petitioner had lodged an FIR alleging that his daughter was kidnapped from Aurangabad in 2019 but however due to the failure of the police to take necessary steps to investigate the case, compelled him to approach the High Court under the writ jurisdiction.
The Court discovered that the daughter had expressed her desire to marry her present husband but her parents refused to grant permission for the same.
Hence, she ran away after contacting her husband, moved to Bhainsa in Telangana where she gave birth to a child and got married.
It was thus observed by the Court that though the father approached the Court with a bonafide intention to protect the interest of his daughter, the same could not be at the cost to curtail the fundamental rights of the daughter.
