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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court recently allowed applications moved by four men to quash kidnapping cases filed against them by the families of their wives. These cases were initiated because the couples had eloped to marry each other against their families' will. 

The bench of Justice Rahul Chaturvedi observed that in each of the four cases, the individuals involved had prior mutual consent and were engaged in romantic relationships. The couples chose to elope from their respective homes due to unfavorable treatment from their families, who strongly opposed such relationships.

Court noted that having attained the age of majority, the couples had legally married and registered their marriages, and currently, all four couples were living as contentedly married partners and had been blessed with children.

While adjudication upon the issue, the single judge bench said that in all four matters, there was an apparent tussle and tug of war between the requirement of the law on one hand and the marital life of the couple with their kids on the other hand.

"Dilemma at times faced by the Court can be of trying to justify State/Police action against an adolescent couple who got married with each other and continued to lead a peaceful life and raise a family, and respect for obeying the law of the land," it said. 

However, it asserted that in such instances, the court must carefully balance conflicting interests, taking into account the repercussions of its decisions on the parties involved and the broader considerations of justice, fairness, and societal order.

The court said, "This Court has time and again reached to the conclusion that true love between the individuals, one or both of who may be a minor or at the verge of majority, cannot be controlled through rigours of law or State action".

It underscored that "When the scale of justice has to be weighed, they are not on the basis of mathematical precision or the mathematical formulas or theorems, but at times, while on one side of the scale there is the law and other side of scale may carry the entire life, happiness and the future of toddlers, their parents and the parents of their parents. The scale that reflects and portrays such pure happiness sans any criminality would definitely equal the scale carrying the law as the application of law is meant for maintaining the rule of law and an orderly society".

Consequently, the court opined that in the cases at hand, the subsistence of respective trials of the husbands would make their lives and new couple horrible and terrific. Therefore, in exercise of its extraordinary power under Section 482 CrPC, it quashed the entire criminal proceedings pending against the husbands. 

Case Title: Pradeep Yadav v. State and 6 Others