"We are not here to please any section of polity": Supreme Court rejects Ashwini Upadhyay plea for uniform marriage age for men and women

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition by BJP leader and advocate, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay seeking uniform marriage age for men and women [Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay v Union of India]..The law as it currently stands prescribes 18 years and 21 years for women and men respectively as the minimum age of marriage.A bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud and Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala noted that though the petitioner seeks to have 21 years as the age of marriage for both men and women, the prayer in the plea was for striking down the provision prescribing minimum age of marriage altogether.The bench opined that simply striking down the provision will lead to a situation with no minimum age of marriage for women. "Mere striking down of the provision which sets 18 year age will lead to no minimum age of marriage for women. It is trite law that under 32 this court cannot issue mandamus to parliament to legislate nor can it legislate," the Court emphasised.The Court was also irked by some statements by Upadhyay when he said that High Court will then decide the matter."We don't want your gratuitous comment on us. We are not here to please you or any section of the polity. Don't you give me gratuitous comment. This is not a political forum. We don't owe you explanation," the CJI remarked..In his petition, Upadhyay stated that there are specific religion based legislations which prescribe a certain age for marriage and that it is discriminatory of Article 14 and 21.Upadhyay prayed that the minimum marriage age for both men and women should be fixed at 21.The plea urged the top court to direct the Central government to take appropriate steps to remove the anomalies in the minimum age of marriage and to make it ‘gender neutral, religion neutral and uniform for all citizens’ in spirit of the Articles 14, 15, 21 and International Conventions..A transfer petition had also been filed by Upadhyay to avoid multiplicity of litigations and conflicting views. He had sought a transfer of petitions pending on this issue before the Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts to the apex court.In February 2021, the apex court had issued notice on that plea.Subsequently, in January 2023, the top court had ordered a transfer of the cases pending before the Delhi High Court to itself..The Court, however, said today that the issue fell within the domain of the parliament and it must defer the issue to the ultimate wisdom of the parliament."We are not exclusive custodians of the Constitution and parliament can also do that. Parliament can also legislate and decide," the bench remarked.The Court, therefore, refused to entertain the plea."We therefore decline to intervene in this petition. Remedies as available to the petitioner can be availed."With this, the petition was dismissed. .In December 2021, the Union Cabinet had passed a proposal to raise the legal age of marriage for women from 18 to 21 years. .[Read our live-coverage of the hearing below].[Read order]