The Supreme Court has quashed an FIR against a highly educated inter-caste couple, saying such marriages are the way forward for reducing rising caste and communal tensions in the country.

The court slammed Karnataka police for threatening to implicate the newly weds in criminal cases. While the girl hails from Karnataka, the boy is from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. Karnataka police had travelled all the way to Uttar Pradesh to threaten the couple, according to the complaint.

“Educated young boys and girls are choosing their life partners which, in turn, is a departure from the earlier norms of society where caste and community played a major role,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, who authored the judgment, said.

“Possibly, this is the way forward where caste and community tensions will reduce by such inter-marriage but in the meantime these youngsters face threats from the elders, and the courts have been coming to the aid of these youngsters….

“We are fortified in our view by earlier judicial pronouncements of this court elucidating that the consent of the family or the community or the clan is not necessary once the two adults agree to enter into wedlock… and that their consent has to be piously given primacy,” Justice Kaul wrote.The bench, which also had Justice Hrishikesh Roy, passed the recent verdict while allowing the petition filed by the college teacher couple, Laxmibai Chandaragi and Santosh Singh Yadav, complaining that although they were adults, Karnataka police had come to Uttar Pradesh and were harassing the girl to record her statement at Murgod police station in the southern state’s Belagavi district.

The cops had registered the FIR on the basis of a missing person’s complaint registered against the husband by the father of the girl, Basappa Chandaragi.Despite Laxmibai sending her marriage certificate to the parents on October 15, 2020, Karnataka police insisted that she record her statement at Murgod police station, failing which cases of theft of jewellery would be registered against her husband, who would be arrested and left without a job.

The apex court noted that while Santosh was an MTech from an NIT in Tiruchirapalli, Laxmibai had MA and BEd degrees. Santosh worked as an assistant professor at Jain College of Engineering, Belagavi, and Laxmibai as a lecturer at Karnataka Lingayat Education Society Pre-University College, Bailhongal, when they met and fell in love.
Subsequently they shifted to Uttar Pradesh and got married, following which the girl’s parents lodged the missing person’s complaint.

Citing its earlier judgment in the Shafin Jahan Vs Asokan case, 2018, in which the court had approved the marriage of a Hindu girl with a Muslim youth, Justice Kaul said: “…The choice of an individual is an inextricable part of dignity, for dignity cannot be thought of where there is erosion of choice. Such a right or choice is not expected to succumb to the concept of ‘class honour’ or group thinking’.”

The bench added: “…Intimacies of marriage lie within a core zone of privacy, which is inviolable and even matters of faith would have the least effect on them.”

The court questioned the manner in which the investigating officer of Karnataka police had conducted himself by threatening the couple instead of filing a closure report.

“The intervention of this court would really not have been required in the given facts of the case if the IO had conducted himself more responsibly in closing the complaint, and if he really wanted to record the statement of petitioner No. 1 (Laxmibai), he should have informed that he would visit her and record the statement instead of putting her under threat of action against petitioner No. 2 (Santosh) to come to the police station,” the judgment said.

“The way forward for the police authorities is to not only counsel the current IOs but device a training programme to deal with such cases for the benefit of the police personnel.

“We expect the police authorities to take action… in the next eight weeks to lay down some guidelines and training programmes how to handle such socially sensitive cases,” the bench said.

“The proceedings in pursuance to the FIR… registered at Murgod police station… are quashed with the hope that the parents of petitioner No. 1 will have a better sense to accept the marriage and re-establish social interaction not only with petitioner No. 1 but even with petitioner No. 2.

“That, in our view, is the only way forward. Under the garb of caste and community to alienate the child and the son-in-law will hardly be a desirable social exercise,” the court added.