Karnataka’s child marriage prohibition amendment: How CJI Khehar set the wheels in motion

President of India Pranab Mukherjee recently gave his assent to the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2016, which puts in place stricter provisions to deter the practice in the state..The Bill, which was amended and passed by the state assembly last year, found its way to the Central Home Ministry, which had in turn sent it to the President for his assent. The amendment was based on the recommendations of the Justice Shivraj Patil Committee, which submitted a report on prevention of child marriage in the state back in 2011..It is, however, interesting to note that it was Chief Justice of India JS Khehar who set the ball rolling way back in 2010, when he was Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court..In 2006, Muthamma Devaya, an activist who had been working for the cause of women and child development, sought the High Court’s intervention in an instance of child marriage in the state. In an order dated November 10, 2010, the High Court Bench of Justices Khehar and AS Bopanna took a stern stand on abolishing the practice. It held,.“Forced marriage of the girl child, one realises, is one of the manifestations of cruelty, possibly without any equivalent comparison. It seems that the practice is commonplace in this part of the world. It may have remained unchecked for various reasons including poverty, lack of education, culture and ignorance. We are of the view that allowing the evil to continue without redressing it, would make us a party to the disgraceful activity.”.The Bench also directed that a Core Committee be set up to look into ways by which the practice could be rooted out from society. This Committee would be headed by former Supreme Court judge Shivraj Patil..The Committee found, among other things, that 22% of girls in Karnataka were married before they turned 18, as per a survey conducted in 2007. In this light, it felt the need to amend the existing law which governs prohibition of child marriage, as it applies in Karnataka. Specifically, the report recommended the amendment of Sections 3, 9, 10 and 11 of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006..The state government accepted the report, and the two Houses of the state legislature passed the Prohibition of Child Marriage (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2016. And with Presidential assent, this has now become an Act..The Act grants upon the police the power to take suo motu notice of offences. It also seeks to put in place a penalty of minimum imprisonment of one year for offences. Moreover, it now deems child marriages void ab initio; earlier, Section 3 of the Act provided that they could be voidable at the option of the contracting party being a child..It might have taken a while for the amendment to see the light of day, but without the Court’s, and specifically Justice Khehar’s intervention, it would have taken even longer..Read the 2010 order: