Fearing arrest, man agrees to marry dalit woman

Fearing arrest, man agrees to marry dalit woman

Dhananjay.Mahapatra@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:11.02.2021 

Marriages may be made in heaven but it was the fear of arrest under rape charges that made a Jat Sikh man keep his promise to marry a scheduled caste woman after trying to wriggle out citing the woman’s caste.

Kanwarbir Singh fell in love with a dalit woman and took her to a gurdwara where he promised to marry her. After the promise, they stayed in hotels and had a sexual relationship. Later, the man spurned the woman and said his parents were objecting to the marriage as she belonged to the Scheduled Caste community.

Crestfallen, the woman, who worked in Australia, filed an FIR at NRI police station in Amritsar, accusing Singh of raping her on the promise of marriage. Fearing arrest, the man moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking anticipatory bail. The HC refused to grant relief.

Singh moved the SC seeking anticipatory bail. Finding the chances of getting relief bleak, the man entered into a compromise with the woman, agreed to marry her within six months and filed the agreement before an SC bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian.

When Singh’s counsel Shakti Paul Sharma informed the bench about the compromise and the man’s willingness to marry the woman he spurned, the bench asked, “How come, suddenly the caste problem has disappeared? Is the settlement a sham and to stall prosecution? Will the issue crop up again once the prosecution is stayed?”

Sharma said Singh’s parents too had filed an affidavit stating the marriage would definitely take place within six months and after marriage, their son would migrate to Australia to be with his wife. The bench agreed to entertain Singh’s anticipatory bail plea and said, “We will issue notice on the petition but will grant relief only after you get married.”

When the advocate sought a stay on arrest, the bench said it would consider the same after Singh got married to the woman. Sharma then said the woman’s arrival from Australia for the marriage was getting delayed because of the strict Covid-19 protocol in that country. This persuaded the bench to stay Singh’s arrest. “Since you have agreed to marry, we will stay your arrest. If you don’t marry her, we will send you back to jail,” it said.