Decision to choose partner rests on an individual and not on State or Society: Bombay High Court

“The strength of our Constitution lies in its acceptance of the plurality and diversity of our culture". Recently, the Bombay High Court in the case of Junned Ahmed Mujib Khan v. State of Maharashtra while rejecting the petition of Habeas Corpus held that “The State or society cannot intrude into the right of an individual to choose his/her marital partner and that decision solely rests on the individual”. In the present case, the petitioner claimed that his daughter was kidnapped and a complaint was lodged with police leading to the registration of FIR against unknown persons. The Court discovered that the daughter had expressed her desire to marry her present husband. However, her parents had refused to grant permission for the same and subjected her to physical assaults when she tried to pursue her desire and was sent to her maternal uncle’s house from where she ran away. The daughter was a minor at the time when she went missing though she had attained the majority by the time the case was heard.

The petitioner asked the court to invoke ‘Parens Patriae’ jurisdiction which empowers the Court to step in and act as guardian for vulnerable children. The Bench of Justices VK Jadhav and SD Kulkarni relied upon SC judgment of Hadiya Case(2018) that Parens Patriae doctrine has to be exercised in exceptional situations where the persons who are incapable of asserting free will such as minors or persons of unsound mind. The court ruled that the exercise of Parens Patriae jurisdiction should not transgress into the area of determining the suitability of the partners to a marital tie hence the court rejected the same.

Highlighting the importance of fundamental rights of an individual to choose a partner said that “The intimacies of marriage, including the choices which individuals make on whether or not to marry and on whom to marry, lie outside the control of the State. Courts as upholders of constitutional freedoms must safeguard these freedoms," and ordered that the girl is at liberty to live her life in accordance with the law.