SC provides police protection to runaway child bride

NEW DELHI: Married off to a 32-year-old contractor to settle a parental debt, a 16 year-old child bride ran away after passing Class X in Bihar, travelled over 1,000 kilometers with a trusted 25-year-old male friend to move the Supreme Court on Wednesday seeking annulment of the marriage and protection from her tyrant husband on hot pursuit.

Acting like ‘parens patriae’ (protector of vulnerable citizens), a bench of Justices Ujjal Bhuyan and Manmohan termed it a “very serious incident” and wasted no time in directing the Delhi Police Commissioner and Bihar DGP to provide adequate protection to her and her friend to keep them from harms away.

In its order, the bench said, “The minor girl has alleged that she was forcibly married to one Jai Shankar despite her being a minor. She has not got parental support at this stage. On the other hand, the husband and his family members are now pursuing the minor and her next friend.”

“As an interim measure, we direct the Bihar DGP and commissioner of Police, Delhi to ensure that no harm is caused to the petitioner and her next friend. Both the authorities are further directed to issue necessary instructions to the concerned police authorities to be in touch with the petitioner and her next friend so that in case of any emergency, necessary assistance can be provided to them,” the bench ordered.

After hearing petitioner’s counsel Abhishek Rai and Gyanant Singh, the bench sought status reports from the top cops of Bihar and Delhi while posting the matter for further hearing on July 15.

The minor girl in her petition narrated a pitiable story about how she was forced by her parents to marry the contractor to settle a debt. She said as a 16-year-old she refused to have a physical relationship with her husband and wanted to study further to become a teacher or a lawyer. But this enraged the husband who used to beat her every day.

With a lot of persuasion, she was allowed to go back to her parental house to appear in the Class X examination, which she cleared in second division. After the results were declared, she consulted her trusted male friend, whom she knew for last two years, and decided to seek annulment of her child marriage.

As she and her friend escaped the web of deceitful marriage and torture at the matrimonial home, her mother lodged an FIR accusing her male friend of kidnapping her. The contractor husband and the girl’s mother pursued the police and got the male friend’s father arrested to pressurise him to abandon her.

Requesting the court to invoke its extraordinary constitutional powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, the girl said without the court’s protection and order for cancellation of the marriage, anyone helping her would be arrested by Bihar police in the FIR lodged by her mother at Piplawa Naubatpur police station in Patna District.

She accused her mother of falsely implicating her male friend’s father, mother and maternal uncle in the FIR. She said she feared for her and her friend’s life if they went back to Bihar or were apprehended in the hunt launched by her husband, who is also pressuring her parents to return the money his family had spent on the marriage.