D. JAYALAKSHMI ALIAS D. JAYAM Vs. R. SOUNDARARAJAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS suit is one for nullity under the Special Marriage Act III of 1872 as amended. The petitioner was born on the 28th of January 1929, and is therefore today under 20 years of age. Her father died in 1938 and since then she has lived with her mother and latterly with her mother in her maternal uncle's house. In 1947 -48 she was attending school in Coimbatore and through one of her school mates met the respondent, a young man now aged about 22. On the 24th of March, 1948, the parties appeared before the Registrar and went through a form of marriage purporting to be in accordance with this Act. At that time the petitioner was just over 19 years of age and the respondent about 21.

(2.) THE question is whether the form of marriage was correct under the provisions of the Act. It is necessary to refer to one or two sections. The first is Section 2 which lays down the conditions upon which marriages under the Act may be celebrated. The parties are Hindus and at the time of the marriage, the petitioner being under the age of 21, it was necessary that the consent of her father or guardian should have been obtained. Section 2, Sub -section (3). It is presumed that due notice was given to the Registrar under Section 4. Section 10 provides as follows:

(3.) IT is admitted that the form prescribed by the Special Marriage Act has not been followed, and the question is whether the marriage is therefore valid or not. Mr. J. Vedamanickam who appears for the respondent has contended strongly and, if I may say so, very ably that the mere absence of the required declaration or even the lack of consent of the father or guardian does not make a marriage between minors invalid and that so to hold would affect the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage. He has cited Ganeshprasad v. Damayanli, I.L.R. (1946) Nag. 1 where Bench of three Judges held that the minority of one or other of the parties to a marriage under Special Marriage Act does not in itself invalidate the marriage, and that Section 2 of the Special Marriage Act does not lay down the conditions of validity but merely prescribes the forms which must be filled in to enable the Registrar to marry the parties. That was a case in which a young man became involved with a woman of bad character but himself was not free from blame and on the special facts of that case they refused to intervene although no consent of the guardian had been obtained. With the greatest respect I am unable to follow or agree with the reasoning of the long judgments which appear in the case and which are mainly devoted to an analysis of English cases which in their turn, in the main, relate to cases where minors have appeared before a Registrar and have made false declarations about their age, a case which not infrequently happens. The English Courts have always held that where a false declaration is made the parties are not entitled to go behind it afterwards when they have begun to repent at leisure of their marriage in haste.