PIL bats for gender parity for Marriageable age
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- Pandora Box
- Friday, 15 June 2012 08:39
- Published on Friday, 15 June 2012 18:39
- Hits: 1108
Gujarat Global News Network, Ahmedabad
A bank official form Rajkot has asked a question, which each young boy must have asked himself when he turned 18, if girls can marry at that age, why he has to wait till the age of 21.
Nathalal Chitroda, a bank official from Rajkot has filed a PIL in the Gujarat high court with a demand that the marriageable age of girls and boys should be equal. He claimed to have moved the HC with this demand due to his sheer “affection for those young people in the country, who are deprived of engaging themselves into wedlock only on account of discrimination in the marriageable age between male and female”.
His petition says, “There should not be discrimination between boys and girls while defining the age of marriage. The only area of discrimination between men and women is their marriageable age. But a male attaining the age of 18 is not able to exercise the same freedom that a woman does. This violates the right to equality guaranteed under article 14.”
The petition contends that if male and female both become eligible to vote and elect government at the age of 18, why should there be difference in their marriageable age.
His petition also reads, “Under the sexual offences bill, 2011, the legislature has given right to a female aged 16 to give consent to sexual intercourse, then how come she cannot be declared fit for marriage?”
But the petition did not evoke too much enthusiasm from the division bench of Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya and Justice J B Pardiwala. The bench posed certain questions that were not addressed in proper manner in the petition. Next hearing has been kept on next Thursday.
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