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Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay Etc. vs. Union of India & Ors.

Transfer Petition (Civil) · 2023 INSC 35Decided 13 Jan 2023
Transfer Petition (Civil) Nos. 1249-1250 of 2020
Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud · Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha

Background

Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay had filed public-interest petitions in two High Courts: one in the Delhi High Court (W.P.(C) No. 8905 of 2019) and one in the Rajasthan High Court (CW/13784/2019), raising the question of whether the minimum age of marriage should be the same for men and women across the various personal and statutory laws that currently set different ages. He asked the Supreme Court to transfer both petitions to itself so that the issue could be decided in one place. At the hearing, senior counsel for the respondents informed the Court that the Rajasthan High Court petition had already been dismissed for want of prosecution.

Decision Breakdown

This is a short procedural order, not a ruling on the merits of the marriage-age question. Since only the Delhi High Court petition remained alive, the Supreme Court disposed of the transfer petitions by transferring W.P.(C) No. 8905 of 2019 from the Delhi High Court to itself. The Record of Proceedings shows the matter was heard alongside connected writ petitions (W.P.(C) No. 584 of 2022 and W.P.(C) No. 551 of 2021); the Court issued notice in W.P.(C) No. 551 of 2021, allowed intervention applications in a tagged criminal SLP but de-tagged that SLP from the batch, and listed the transferred case with the connected writ petitions for 13 February 2023. The order was revised twice on the file (from "allowed" to "disposed of" in terms of the signed reportable order), but the substantive direction, transfer of the Delhi petition, is the same in every version.

Lesson Learnt

When the same important legal question is pending in more than one High Court, the Supreme Court can transfer the matter to itself so that a single, authoritative answer is given rather than conflicting rulings across States. This order only brought the uniform-marriage-age question before the Supreme Court; it did not decide what that age should be.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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