Bangalore: The Karnataka High Court, while allowing a girl who married her lover to live with him, warned that what she did to her parents may come back from her children. TL Nagaraju had filed a habeas corpus petition in the HC stating that his daughter, Nisarga, an engineering student, was missing from his college hostel and one Nikhil alias Abhi, who was a driver, forcibly took her away was.
Nisarga and Nikhil were produced before a division bench of Justices B Veerappa and KS Hemalekha. Nisarga voluntarily submitted before the court that she was older for her age as she was born on April 28, 2003.
She was in love with Nikhil and went with him of her own free will. The two got married on May 13 in a temple and have been living together since then.
She wanted to be with her husband and did not want to go back to her parents. She claimed that she was doing so of her own free will in a “fit state of mind”.
While recording the statements of Nisarga and Nikhil, the court gave some advice for both the parents and their daughter.
“Our history shows that there are parents who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of children and children have sacrificed their lives for the parents. If there is love and affection between the two, then there is a family. There can be no rift and there will be no question. Either the children are going against the parents or the parents are going to the court against the children to protect their rights,” HC told parents .
“The peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case clearly show that love is a blind and more powerful weapon than the love and affection of parents, family members and society,” the court said in its recent judgment.
The court also warned for Nisarga: “The time has come for children to know that life involves reaction, resonance and reflection. What they are doing to their parents today, will be fine tomorrow.” ”
Quoting the ‘Manusmriti’, it said, “Even according to the Manusmriti, no man can pay his parents, even in 100 years, all the troubles they give birth to him and raise him to adulthood. Therefore, try to do whatever pleases your parents and guru, because only then any religious worship performed by you will bear fruit.”
However, the court dismissed Nisarga’s father’s plea saying that while the law may regulate the terms of a valid marriage, “the society has no role to play in determining its choice of partners, including parents. Well settled is the autonomy of the individual to make decisions on matters of vital concern to life.”