CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has come to the rescue of a 20-year-old woman who was forced into marriage by her teacher. The man was about twenty years elder to her. The court, using its extraordinary powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, revoked the registration of their marriage, taking into account the ‘special circumstances’ and ‘consent of couple’ to separate and stay away.
“In view of the consent expressed by the petitioner and the detenue for annulling the marriage, we are inclined to set aside the registration of marriage made before the Registrar of Marriages at Puducherry in 2024 and the parties are at liberty to submit this order before the Registrar of Marriages for effecting necessary entries cancelling the marriage in the marriage register,” a division bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam said in a recent order.
The teacher had approached the Madras HC with a heabeas corpus petition seeking direction to produce the woman before court and direct her to go with him as she was kept under illegal custody of her parents. After being produced before court, she told court that she signed marriage registration papers under compelling circumstances and without understanding the consequences..
She also told she was not willing to go with him and wanted to pursue higher education. The petitioner, after realising his mistakes, agreed to give up on the marriage relationship and promised not to interfere with the affairs of the girl or her family members. The bench directed the Registry of the court to communicate the copy of the order to the Registrar of Marriages in Puducherry, so as to make necessary entries in the register regarding the cancellation of the marriage.