NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has received a PIL challenging certain provisions of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 stating that they violated a couple’s right to privacy.
The petitioner claims that Section 5 of the Act requires a couple to file a notice of intended marriage to be given to the marriage officer where at least one of the parties have lived there 30 days immediately preceding to the time of presentation of the said notice.
Filed by a female law student, it also claims that Section 6, which lets people ‘scrutinize’ and object to the intended marriage gave undue advantage to the marriage officer in that regard.
These anomalies in the law violate the constitutional rights of the couple who intend to marry, depriving them of the right to privacy under Section 21 of the Constitution of India., the petitioner said.
Additionally, the petitioner said there wasn’t any such requirement in the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 or the Muslim Law.
Twitterati had a field day trolling this development. One person turned the development on its head with this tweet.
Another commented-
Overall, this seems like a welcome development as interfaith marriages may now not need special permissions to get it done.