“Make parents’ nod must for love marriages”

Paattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) leader S. Ramadoss, who has run a campaign against inter-caste marriages, now wants the government to amend the Hindu Marriage Act to make the consent of parents compulsory if a girl wants to marry before she is 21.

In a statement here, he referred to a suggestion by a Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court in 2011 that “in the case of love affair of a girl, who is below the age of 21 years, there shall be a condition that the parents of the girl should approve the marriage; otherwise such marriages shall be declared void or voidable.”

Dr. Ramadoss said the Karnataka High Court had explained the “untold misery and hardship” of parents of teenage girls falling in love. The legal age for marriage for girls is 18.

He also referred to a dispute between Tamil film-maker Cheran and his daughter over her intention to marry an assistant director. The daughter, Kamani, has filed a complaint with the Chennai Police accusing her father of threatening her lover.

“I can understand the pain of Cheran as a father,” he said and added that he agreed fully with Mr. Cheran’s argument that a father could not accept a bad character as his son-in-law.

Dr. Ramadoss said it was a good gesture on the part of the City police advising Mr. Cheran’s daughter to complete her studies before getting married even though she and her lover had reached marriageable age. 

“If the police had followed the same principle and advised Divya and Ilavarasan of Dharmapuri, Divya’s father would not have committed suicide and all the unwanted things that followed the death could have been averted,” he said.

Ilavarasan’s watch gives time of impact:

Investigators probing the death of the Dalit youth E. Ilavarasan have more evidence to suspect that it was a case of suicide, though his family is alleging that it could be a murder.This time, it is the watch of the victim recovered from the scene where his body was found along the railway track on July 4 in Dharmapuri.

The watch stopped functioning at 1.20 p.m. On suspicion that the watch came apart when Ilavarasan was hit by the speeding train, police sought to know the exact time when the Coimbatore-Mumbai Kurla Expressed crossed the location.