Saturday, March 3, 2018

Marriage of minor: High court pulls up sub-registrar, advocate

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

03.03.2018

Chennai: Pulling up a sub-registrar and an advocate for manipulating documents and registering a marriage between a minor boy and a girl who has reached legal age of marriage, the Madras high court has ordered appropriate action against the duo. While the Bar council is to take action against advocate E Lenin, the inspector-general of registration shall conduct inquiry against the Poonamallee sub-registrar and take action.

“A perusal of the entire documents would show they have been prepared by the advocate and manipulated as if the boy was a major and got the marriage registered. Legal profession is not meant for conducting marriages. We consider it appropriate to refer the matter to the Bar council for appropriate action. As to the sub-registrar concerned, who had resorted to registering the marriage without proper verification of the age of the boy and girl, the inspector-general of registration shall conduct necessary enquiry and take appropriate action,” ruled a division bench of Justice C T Selvam and Justice NSathish Kumar.

The bench was passing orders when a habeas corpus petition filed by a girl’s father came up for hearing. The couple (the boy and the girl) informed the court their marriage had been registered before the registrar of marriages, office of the sub registrar, Poonamallee, on January 22. They also produced a marriage certificate issued by the office.

Regarding the marriageable age of the boy, they produced a photocopy of a record sheet issued by the principal of a government Adi Dravidar welfare high school, Chennai, showing his date of birth as June 7, 1995. But, further inquiry revealed his date of birth was October 19, 1997. The court passed the strictures after the couple informed it that it was Lenin who made the entire arrangements for marriage, including fabricating documents to show that the boy was a major.

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