Prosecuting people hasn't stopped child marriages; community-driven approach required: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Friday held that the law prohibiting child marriages should be tailored to suit different communities and there should be a community-driven approach while implementing the law to ensure its success [Society for Enlightenment and Voluntary Action and anr v Union of India and ors]..A Bench led of Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud with Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra noted that prosecution of persons conducting such marriages has not been an effective deterrent."The aim of law enforcement should not be prosecution since prosecution based approach has proven to be counter," the Court stated.Hence, it batted for multi-sectoral coordination and robust training for law enforcement officers for the effective implementation of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006 (PCMA). "Preventive strategy should be tailored to different communities. The law will only succeed when there is multi-sectoral coordination. Training and capacity building of law enforcement officers needs to be there. We emphasise that there needs to be community driven approaches," the Court said.The Court also said that there are many gaps in the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act and particularly highlighted the fact that the law is silent on the validity of child marriages which take place. Such marriages take away the option of the individual to choose his or her partner, the Court said.Hence, there is a need to prevent such marriages, the Court underlined."There are certain gaps in PCMA. Legal questions are kept open to be decided by constitutional court. Interlinking of personal law with PCMA is a point to be looked at. PCMA says nothing on validity of marriages as such. a bill to amend PCMA to give overriding effect over personal laws is pending before parliamentary committee. But such marriages take away their option to have a choice of partner," the judgment said.Therefore, it issued a slew of guidelines to ensure that the law achieves its objective."We direct that following guidelines are implemented....women and child ministry is directed to send the judgment to all chief secretaries and the NALSA for implementation. We have given comprehensive directions and guidelines," the Bench said..The judgment came in a public interest litigation (PIL) regarding the implementation of PCMAThe petitioner-NGO contended that the Act was not being implemented in letter and spirit. The top court had sought the response of the Union government in the matter in April 2018 and reserved its verdict on July 10 this year..Advocates Mugdha, Kamran Khawja and Satya Mitra appeared for the petitioner-NGO, the Society for Enlightenment and Voluntary Action.Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati and Senior Advocate Swarupama Chaturvedi with advocates Snidha Mehra, Rajat Nair, Pratyush Shrivastava, Sandeep Kumar Mahapatra and Amrish Kumar Sharma appeared for the Union government..[Read judgment]