Should ‘age of majority’ be revised, asks Punjab and Haryana High Court

Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 26

More than 150 years after the Indian Majority Act came into existence, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued notice to the Centre, two States and the UT on examining the issue of revising the age of majority.

The Bench also called for an affidavit “as to whether there is any proposal for tabling any amendment as regards an upward revision in the age of majority”. Justice Amol Rattan Singh asserted: “This court finds it necessary to issue notice to the Union of India, the states of Punjab and Haryana, as also UT Chandigarh, to go into the issue as to whether the age of majority needs to be revised or not, the Indian Majority Act, 1875, being an Act enacted more than 150 years ago; and with teenagers now normally still being students even sometimes well into their 20s, whereas that was not usually the position at the time when the said Act was enacted.”

The direction came on a petition for protection of life and liberty filed against the state of Haryana and other respondents by a couple in a live-in relationship through counsel Vishal Khatri and Abhishek Kaushik.

The state counsel, during the course of hearing, placed before the Bench an affidavit filed by Panchkula ACP, stating that verification carried out from the schools revealed that the couple was above 18. The boy was about three months short of 21 and the girl slightly short of 19.

Justice Singh asserted that the petitioners obviously had to be considered as adults, whether mentally so or not was a separate issue altogether. This was because the age of majority was 18 years in accordance with the Indian Majority Act.

Justice Singh asserted that the invocation of the provisions of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, was ruled out, if they had chosen to live together and had, at least, not admitted marriage between them.

The age of majority or “full age” is the age at which a person is granted by law the rights of an adult, such as ability to sue, and responsibilities, such as liability under contract. Before parting with the case, Justice Amol Rattan Singh also directed the Union of India through the Home Secretary, the State of Punjab through Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and Chandigarh through the Home Secretary, to be impleaded as respondents.