{"id":69610,"date":"2020-11-16T17:29:02","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T11:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=69610"},"modified":"2021-05-17T11:26:12","modified_gmt":"2021-05-17T05:56:12","slug":"right-of-free-consent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/right-of-free-consent\/","title":{"rendered":"Issue of \u201clove jihad\u201d: Right of \u201cfree consent\u201d for Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Context:\u00a0<\/strong>Many state governments have announced that they are considering enacting an appropriate law to stop marriages which they term as \u201clove jihad\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are the recent cases?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Muslim girl by birth converted to the Hindu religion and just after a month, she married a Hindu man according to Hindu rites and rituals.<\/li>\n<li>The Allahabad court directed the girl to appear before a magistrate to record her statements.<\/li>\n<li>The purpose was to check whether the girl converted with her consent or not.<\/li>\n<li>In another matter, a Hindu girl by birth converted to Islam and married a Muslim. The High Court recorded her statement and after its subjective satisfaction that she, being a major, had acted of her own volition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What was the basis of observations?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Lily Thomas (2000) and Sarla Mudgal (1995):<\/strong>\u00a0In both the cases, the issue was of Hindu married men committing bigamy to avail a second marriage, without dissolving the first just by converting from Hinduism to Islam.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Section 494 and second marriage:<\/strong>\u00a0Both judgments concluded that the second marriage of a Hindu husband, after his conversion to Islam, would not be valid in view of Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code. The Court clarified that a marriage solemnised as a Hindu marriage cannot be terminated by one spouse converting to another religion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What are the arguments against such laws?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>No legal basis:<\/strong>\u00a0The concept of \u201clove jihad\u201d has no legal or constitutional basis, it has been concocted for the last few years.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fundamental right:<\/strong>\u00a0The right to marry a person of one\u2019s choice is a guarantee under Article 21. At the same time, freedom of conscience, the practice and propagation of a religion of one\u2019s choice, including not following any religion, are guaranteed under Article 25.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Avoid mixing of issues:<\/strong>\u00a0Polygamy, polyandry, kidnapping, coercion, etc. are separate issues covered under existing provisions of the IPC.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fundamental freedoms<\/strong>: The right to marry a person of one\u2019s choice flows from the freedom of individuality, naturally available to any individual.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Supreme court views<\/strong>: The view of the Supreme Court (1965) that a marriage is not approved unless the essential ceremonies required for its solemnisation are proved to have been performed can only be read if one partner denies the marriage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Marriage is the very foundation of civilised society<\/strong>: the observation that \u201cmarriage is the very foundation of civilised society\u201d and without which no civilised society can exist have become obsolete given the recent judgments by larger benches of the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sub-judice<\/strong>: The legality of legislation like the Citizenship Amendment Act, which excludes only one religion from its purview, criminalisation of pronouncements of triple talaq and taking away the special status of Jammu &amp; Kashmir are pending consideration in the Supreme Court.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Courts needs to examine if the individual concerned has exercised their right of\u00a0<strong>\u201cfree consent\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Hanaxnrcnt\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/social-issues-news\/social-justice-news-and-updates\/\">Social Justice : news and updates<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;Social Justice : news and updates&#8221; &#8212; Free UPSC IAS Preparation For Aspirants\" src=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/social-issues-news\/social-justice-news-and-updates\/embed\/#?secret=T8nw3NgZ03#?secret=Hanaxnrcnt\" data-secret=\"Hanaxnrcnt\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context:\u00a0Many state governments have announced that they are considering enacting an appropriate law to stop marriages which they term as \u201clove jihad\u201d. What are the recent cases? A Muslim girl by birth converted to the Hindu religion and just after a month, she married a Hindu man according to Hindu rites and rituals. The Allahabad&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/right-of-free-consent\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Issue of \u201clove jihad\u201d: Right of \u201cfree consent\u201d for Marriage<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,1351,1310],"tags":[1572,1301,1352,1358,1294],"class_list":["post-69610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-daily-news","category-daily-news-updates","tag-inter_faith_marriages","tag-po_3","tag-soc_6","tag-soty_1","tag-soty_2","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":244,"cached_at":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}