[Uniform marriage age for men and women] Supreme Court issues notice in plea to transfer cases from High Courts to Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on a plea seeking transfer of cases praying for uniform marriage age for men and women, from High Courts to the Supreme Court..The transfer petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay stated that in order to avoid multiplicity of litigations and conflicting views on interpretation of Articles 14, 15, 21 and judgments on gender justice and gender equality, the top court should transfer petitions pending before the Delhi and Rajasthan High Courts to the apex court and decide them together. .In his main petition seeking uniform age for marriage, Upadhyay has 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.The provisions are:Section 60(1) of the Indian Christian Marriage Act, 1872;· Section 3(1)(c) of the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936;· Section 4(c) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954;· Section 5(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955;· Section 2(a) of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. .Upadhyay has prayed that the minimum marriage age for men and women should be fixed at 21..The plea states that India signed the ‘Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women’ (CEDAW) on July 30, 1980 and ratified it in 1993 to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations..The plea further urges the top court to direct the Central government to take appropriate steps to remove the anomalies in the minimum age of marriage and make it ‘gender neutral, religion neutral and uniform for all citizens’ in spirit of the Articles 14, 15, 21 and International Conventions and declare that minimum age of marriage shall be 21 years for all citizens.."Today, the minimum age for women is 18 as against 21 for men and this amounts to a blatant discrimination against women, the petition argues. It claims there no scientific backing for different ages for marriage except for the distinction based on patriarchal stereotypes perpetrating inequality against women that goes completely against the global trends," reads the plea..The petition urges the Court to either itself decide the issue of the marriage age to secure "gender justice, gender equality and dignity of women," and declare 21 years as the minimum age of marriage for all citizens or direct the Centre to remove the anomaly in the minimum age of marriage and make it "gender neutral, religion neutral and uniform for all citizens in the spirit of Articles 14, 15, 21 and the international conventions.