Depletion of the sex ratio in the State of Gujarat is resulting in more and more cases of exchange marriages: Gujarat HC
The Gujarat High Court ruled that the depletion of the sex ratio in the State of Gujarat is resulting in more and more cases of exchange marriages.
Background
The petition is preferred under Article 226 of the Constitution of India where the husband has approached the Court seeking the custody of the corpus from the illegal confinement of the respondent.
Arguments
Advocate Amita Shah, appearing for the petitioners, contended that the petitioner is the husband of a corpus named Pritiben. It is the case of the petitioner that the wife is illegally detained by respondent, who is the father of the corpus.
He argued that the corpus is the legally wedded wife of the petitioner and the certificate, in support of his submissions, is also annexed. A complaint for detaining the corpus is also made before the Himmatnagar police station.
Decision
The division bench of Justice Sonia Gokani and Justice Mauna M. Bhatt stated that depletion of sex ratio in the State of Gujarat results into more and more such cases coming up to the Court where on one hand birth of the daughter is not acceptable and on the other hand with depletion of the ratio, the marriages are essentially the exchange marriages which takes place regardless of will, wish, emotion and the age.
The court after noticing the fact that the marriage is performed with the will and wish of the corpus and she was not permitted to leave her parental home because of the extreme pressure of the family and her concern for her brother, directed the corpus to join the petitioner and acceded to the request of advocate Amita Shah that the petitioner and the corpus needed to be given the police protection at least for the period of 8 weeks.
The court conveyed very firmly to the father of the corpus that any attempt to take the law in the hands will be stringently viewed. If anything of that sort is noticed, the police may take appropriate actions.
Case title: Sandipkumar Manubhai Patel v/s State of Gujarat
Citation: R/SPECIAL CRIMINAL APPLICATION NO. 881 of 2022
