New Delhi: Terming honour crimes instigated by khap panchayats as an assault on human dignity and violation of individual rights and freedom, the Supreme Court on Tuesday banned khap panchayats from issuing any edicts on marriages, terming their interference as “absolutely illegal”.
Self-appointed, quasi-judicial and often all-male congregations of village elders trying to stop marriages between two consenting adults “guillotined” individual liberty and freedom of choice, and was having a “catastrophic effect on the society”, the bench said while issuing directions for legislation and punitive measures.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra issued guidelines to lodge FIRs for illegal assembly against those who attend khap panchayats that oppose inter-caste, same gotra marriages and issue diktats for honour killings, primarily in the Jat-heavy states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The court also ordered departmental action against officials who turn a blind eye to such incidents.
The bench also ordered creation of special cells in all districts to deal with complaints of couples under threat and the setting up of fast-track courts for hearing criminal cases against khap panchayat members.
“Assertion of choice is an insegregable facet of liberty and dignity. Honour killing guillotines individual liberty, freedom of choice and one’s own perception of choice,” said the CJI.
“It has to be sublimely borne in mind that when two adults consensually choose each other as life partners, it is a manifestation of their choice, which is recognised under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution,” said the bench, also comprising Justices A.M. Kanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud while disposing of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by social group Shakti Vahini.
The bench said the majority (khap panchayats) in the name of class or elevated honour of clan cannot call for the presence of the couples or force their appearance as if they are the monarchs of some indescribable era who have the power, authority and final say to impose any sentence and determine the execution of the same.
“They cannot harbour the notion that they are a law unto themselves or they are the ancestors of Caesar or, for that matter, Louis the XIV,” said the CJI.
The court also supported the youths’ right to choose a partner. “Elders of the family or clan can never be allowed to proclaim a verdict guided by some notion of passion and eliminate the life of the young who have exercised their choice to get married against the wishes of their elders or contrary to the customary practice of the clan,” it said.
Though there has been constant social advancement, yet the problem of honour killing persists in the same way as history had seen in 1750 BC under the Code of Hammurabi, the court said referring to the Babylonian code of law of ancient Mesopotamia.
The court said that any kind of torture or torment or ill-treatment in the name of honour, amounts to “atrophy” of an individual’s choice relating to love and marriage and such “vicious” crimes by any assembly, under any name, “is illegal and cannot be allowed a moment of existence”.
“Honour crime is the genus and honour killing is the species, although a dangerous facet of it,” the bench said, adding that its guidelines will remain in force till Parliament enacts a law to curb the menace of khap panchayats and honour killings.
Giving a series of directions, the bench said state governments should identify districts, sub-divisions and villages where instances of honour killing or assembly of khap panchayats have been reported in the past five years. If there is any information about meetings of khap panchayats, states should deploy adequate police force for prevention of assembly of the proposed gathering.
The court noted that people involved in such crimes become totally oblivious of the fact that they cannot tread an illegal path, break the law and offer justification with some kind of moral philosophy of their own.
“They forget that the law of the land requires that the same should be shown implicit obedience and profound obeisance. The human rights of a daughter, brother, sister or son are not mortgaged to the so-called or so-understood honour of the family or clan or the collective. The act of honour killing puts the rule of law in a catastrophic crisis,” the bench said.
