Saurabh malik
Tribune news service
Chandigarh, November 19
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that first cousins cannot marry. The Bench also ruled that a young man’s claims to marry his first cousin, with whom he had a domestic relationship, were themselves illegal.
‘Forbidden Sapinda’
- The young man and girl fell for the ‘sapinda’ prohibited under the Hindu Marriage Law, the state’s lawyer told the court.
- The duo, as such, could not marry, he argued.
- It was not that they were in a cohabitation relationship, which was per se immoral and not acceptable in society, he added.
“The presentation in this petition that they will marry when the girl turns 18 is illegal per se,” Judge Arvind Singh Sangwan ruled.
The claim came after the young man submitted to the High Court against the state of Punjab for the granting of advance bail in a registered kidnapping and other crime case on August 18 under Sections 363 and 366-A of the IPC at Khanna City-2 Police Station in Ludhiana District.
His lawyer told Judge Sangwan’s Bench that the petitioner had also filed a petition for a criminal order, along with the girl, for the protection of life and liberty. Taking note of the presentation, Judge Sangwan cited the court file of the criminal order petition before noting that the girl was said to be 17 years old.
Judge Sangwan also took note of the fact that the young man, in the petition, had stated that the two were in a relationship. In a demonstration attached to the petition, the girl had stated that her parents had love and affection for her children and she was ignored by them.
Opposing the declaration of bail, the state’s attorney maintained that the girl was a minor. Her parents filed a FIR as she and the young man were first cousins and her parents were real siblings.
