An opportunity to advance substantive equality in child marriage laws
Children hold placards during an awareness campaign against child marriage in Bikaner, Rajasthan. File
| Photo Credit: PTI
In Sanjay Chaudhary v. Guddan (2024), the Allahabad High Court annulled the marriage of a couple, who got married when the man was 12 and the woman was nine, under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act (PCMA), 2006. While the man had filed a petition for divorce when he was 20 years, 10 months and 28 days old, he later amended his plea for nullification of the marriage under Section 3 of the PCMA. This allows any party who got married as a child to seek annulment of the marriage as long as the petition is filed within two years of attaining majority.Artificial differentiation
While ‘ch...