The Madhya Pradesh High Court upholds rights of interfaith couple to marry, live-in and says ‘No moral policing’

The Madhya Pradesh High Court upheld the right of an interfaith couple to stay with each other through marriage or in a live-in relationship, and said that “no moral policing” can be allowed in an issue involving the decisions by two individuals taken “willingly” and directed the police to ensure that a 19-year-old woman, who was allegedly being detained by her family after she married a Muslim man, is reunited with her husband.

The court was hearing a habeas corpus petition moved by Gulzar Khan, a 27-year-old a resident of Gorakhpur in Jabalpur, who said he married his neighbour Arti Sahu in a Bandra court on December 28 after the two eloped to Mumbai. Sahu also converted to Islam by choice, the petition said.

The married pair, living in Mumbai, was detained by a team of policemen from Jabalpur while they were on their way to collect their marriage certificate in Bandra on January 15, according to the petition. MP Police took them back to Jabalpur, after which Sahu’s family took her to Varanasi (UP) and illegally detained her there.

After that acting on the petition, Sahu (19) was produced before the single bench of Justice Nandita Dubey and she testified that she willingly converted to Islam and married Khan.

“The corpus is a major person whose age is not disputed by any of the parties; the constitution gives a right to every major citizen of this country to live her or his life as per her or his wishes. Under the circumstances, the objection raised by the counsel for the state and her prayer to send the Corpus to Nari Niketan rejected,” the order said

The state counsel Priyanka Mishra said that marriage was in violation of the MP Freedom of Religion Act 2021. She said that as per Section 3 of the Act, no person shall convert for the purpose of marriage and any conversion in contravention to this provision shall be deemed null and void.

The court, however, rejected the argument. “The court said this case is not at all a violation of the act because the woman was not forced for conversion and they got married as per the rights given to them in the constitution, said Juned Khan, the petitioner’s counsel.

Justice Dubey said, “No moral policing can be allowed in such matters where the two major persons are willing to stay together whether by way of marriage or in a live-in relationship, when the party to that arrangement is doing it willingly and not forced into it.”

Finally the court also rejected the state counsel’s demand to send the woman to a shelter home.