Woman's plea to SC: Child marriage can't deny me a job

April 17, 2012

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New Delhi, April 17: A woman who was forced into marriage as a minor and suffered years of abuse before obtaining a divorce and qualifying for the Madhya Pradesh state civil service has petitioned Supreme Court that a law to discourage child marriage is being used unfairly to deny her a job.

Responding to Ratnarashi Pandey's plea, the Supre8me Court on Monday issued notice to the MP government on her challenging the validity of a rule that says people who marry as minors are debarred from appointment in the civil services.

Ratnarashi was married at the age of 14 and the marriage, marked by physical and mental cruelty, ended 13 years later when she got a divorce. As she got no maintenance from her husband and had to bring up two children, she cleared the state civil services exams only to be told that her marriage as minor disqualified her from a state government job.

She has challenged the legal validity of rule 6(5) of MP Civil Services (general condition of service) Rules, 1961, as despite the odds against her, Ratnarashi cleared the examination twice but was rejected because of her marriage over which she had no control.

Appearing before a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai, Ratnarashi's counsel Neela Gokhale said her client should not be punished for being married off by her parents when she was a minor. The bench issued notice to the state and directed it to keep one post vacant till further orders.

Rule 6(5), inserted into the MP law on March 10, 2005, says, "No candidate shall be eligible for appointment to a service or post who has married before the minimum age fixed for marriage. The minimum age of marriage for a boy is 21 years while that for a girl is 18 years."

Since Ratnarashi got married when she was 14, she was refused appointment to MP civil services although she argued that she was a victim rather than an offender.

The high court dismissed her petition and justified the provision saying Rule 6(5) had been introduced to prevent child marriages more effectively as various laws to eradicate the social evil had not yielded results.

Gokhale said the high court, while dismissing Pandey's petition, ignored welfare legislations in favour of children, which warranted a holistic approach towards this peculiar problem.

"Rule of law does not contemplate any punishment or disqualification of a child who is a victim of such child marriage practice and in fact, even the Declaration of Human Rights of the Child by United Nations specifically declares that any child in conflict of law shall not suffer any disqualification in his career and shall be supported by the state to reform himself as a law abiding citizen," she said.

Ratnarashi said although she was a victim of the deplorable practice of child marriage in her society, she was being denied an opportunity to live with dignity and respect by earning her livelihood through an appointment in state civil services for which she is eligible and has cleared necessary screening tests.

Times View

This appears to be a clear case of a well-intentioned law becoming counterproductive when mechanically applied. The idea of discouraging child marriage is undoubtedly correct. However, as the woman in this specific case is pointing out, she can hardly be blamed for the fact that she was married off at14. Common sense dictates that she should be viewed as a victim rather than as someone who is practicing a social evil. She was a minor when she got married and was in no position to object effectively. To punish her for that would be to compound the injustice done to her. If anything, she is to be admired for rising from such a situation to be able to successfully compete in the civil service exams.

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Kota, Jan 4: Following the death of an infant in the morning, the death toll in JK Lon Hospital here has risen to 107, officials said on Saturday.

A three-member state government committee of doctors, who was sent to investigate the matter on December 23 and 24, found that Kota's JK Lone Hospital is short of beds and it requires improvement.

However, the committee gave a clean chit to the doctors for any lapses over the recent death of infants admitted there.

A Central government team reached the hospital on Saturday to take stock of the situation.

As per the government report, at least 91 infants lost their lives at the government hospital in December last year.

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to Chief Secretary of Rajasthan to submit a detailed report within 4 weeks about the steps being taken to address the issue.

The Commission also asked the Chief Secretary to ensure that such deaths of the children do not recur in future due to lack of infrastructure and health facilities at the hospitals.

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News Network
March 9,2020

New Delhi, Mar 9: The Centre and the Delhi government are working in close coordination to deal with coronavirus, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said here on Monday.

Talking to reporters after a review meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on the preparedness for COVID-19, the chief minister said people arriving from foreign countries are being screened at airports.

A campaign will be run to make people aware of the preventive measures to contain the spread of the disease, Kejriwal said.

Health Ministry sending directives to states: Vardhan

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government is prepared to deal with novel coronavirus and his ministry is sending directives, including guidelines, to states in all the languages on ways to contain it.

"We are sending detailed guidelines to all states on ways to contain coronavirus. Have asked states to strengthen laboratories and manpower to effectively deal with coronavirus and form early rapid action teams," Vardhan told reporters adding, that the government is prepared to deal with the infection.

Vardhan stressed on a coordinated action between all concerned departments and agencies for activities such as contact tracing, community surveillance, hospital management, identification of isolation wards, ensuring adequate personal protection equipment and masks and risk communication for mass awareness.

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Agencies
February 7,2020

Jammu & Kashmir, Feb 7: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah, besides two political stalwarts from NC and its arch-rival PDP were booked under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) by the administration on Thursday, officials said.

A magistrate accompanied by police served the order to Mufti at the bungalow where she has been detained, the officials said.

Abdullah was also booked under the PSA, they said.

National Conference general secretary and former minister Ali Mohammed Sagar, who wields a support base in downtown city, was served with a PSA notice public order by the authorities.

Similarly, senior PDP leader Sartaj Madani was booked under the PSA. Madani is the maternal uncle of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti.

Both Sagar and Madani were detained in the aftermath of August 5 crackdown by the Centre on politicians following abrogation of special status of the erstwhile state, besides its bifurcation into two union territories.

Their six-month preventive custody was ending on Thursday.

Earlier, the officials had said that former NC legislator Bashir Ahmed Veeri was also booked under the PSA but later it turned out that he had been released.

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