Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has asked the Maharashtra government to explain what steps it has taken to stop child marriages in the state, observing that there are hardly any FIR's under the Prevention of Child Marriage Act.
The HC was hearing a petition by a Pune-based NGO Child Marriage Prohibition Committee and social activists. The petition had sought that rules be framed for effective implementation of the Act. It also sought direction to register offences of child marriage and initiate processes for cancelling them. A newspaper report was brought to the attention of the court during the hearing, which showed that 1,200 child marriages had been stopped in the past two years in a district of Maharashtra.
The petitioner's advocates Asim Sarode and Ajinkya Udane told a bench of Justice AA Sayed and Justice Abhay Ahuja that early marriages have devastating consequences on girls and in the absence of rules, as many as a lakh child marriages are taking place in the state every year.
The plea alleged that though the state's women and child welfare department had claimed that no child marriage had taken place in the state in the last three years, such marriages continued to take place in tribal belts and backward regions.
Additional Government Pleader Reena Salunkhe submitted before the bench that rules under the Act have been formulated and that a committee formed to look into its effective implementation. The bench will hear the matter next on June 13 when the state has been directed to explain the steps it has taken to prevent child marriages.
