‘Anti-child marriage’ affidavits made mandatory to get birth certificates in Rajasthan
Rajasthan high court asks municipalities to get parents to sign affidavits.
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Rajasthan high court. Image credit: Post staff
Jaipur: Planning to get a birth certificate for your child? You will have to take an oath that you won’t marry off your child before he or she attain the minimum legal age for marriage.
The Rajasthan high court has asked municipalities across the state to make it mandatory for parents to sign an affidavit at the time of applying for birth certificates for their children.
The affidavit will proclaim that parents will not marry off their son and daughter before they attain the legal age of 21 and 18 respectively.
The bench of Justice Gopalkrishna Vyas and GR Moolchandani directed all municipalities in the state to get affidavits from parents before issuing birth certificates.
The Jodhpur bench was hearing a case in which a minor girl was married off to a middle-aged man by her parents.
The child marriage took place in Barmer district.
A minor girl, a resident of Shiv area in the district, was forced to marry 37-year-old man.
The girl, however, refused to go with her husband.
A caste panchayat imposed a penalty of Rs 25 lakh on the girl and her family and outcaste them.
The high court took a suo-moto cognizance in the case. It summoned all the community leaders and asked them to submit an affidavit that the girl had not been outcaste.
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