An order by a top court in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh upholding an interfaith marriage has been welcomed by minority communities.
The Jabalpur bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court confirmed the rights of a Hindu woman married to a Muslim man while preventing the government from criminalizing the marriage by invoking the anti-conversion law.
The order delivered on Jan. 28 was welcomed by Father Maria Stephen, public relations officer of the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh, and Maulana Umar Quasim, a Muslim cleric.
Judge Nandita Dubey’s order came in response to a habeas corpus petition by Gulzar Khan seeking custody of his wife who had been con-fined in a house by her parents and other relatives after they were informed of their marri-age and her religious conversion.
The court in its order held the young woman was a grown-up and had willingly married a person after converting to Islam. “She has made a categorical statement that she was never forced into conversion and whatever she has done was as per her own wishes,” it said.
The government’s lawyer had sought that the marriage should be declared “null and void” as it was not legally tenable under the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021.