The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights challenging a 2022 Punjab and Haryana High Court judgement, which ruled that a 16-year-old Muslim girl can lawfully marry a Muslim man under personal law, Live Law reports.

The High Court order had at the time also granted the couple protection from threats.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Justice R Mahadevan said on Tuesday that the child rights commission was not a party to the litigation before the High Court and therefore, it did not have the right to challenge the judgement.

“…If two minor children are protected by the High Court, how can NCPCR challenge such an order?” Live Law quoted the bench as having asked. “It is strange that the NCPCR, which is for protecting the children, has challenged such an order.”

The child rights panel said that it was raising a broader question of law: whether a girl, who had not become 18 years of age, can be considered to have the legal capacity to enter into a marriage merely based on personal law.

However, the bench said that no question of law was arising from the 2022 case. It allowed the statutory body to raise the matter “in an appropriate case”, Live Law reported.

“We fail to see how NCPCR can be aggrieved by such an order,” the bench was quoted as saying. “If the High Court, in exercise of its power under Article 226, seeks to extend protection to two individuals, the NCPCR has no locus standi to challenge such an order.”

Article 226 of the Constitution provides the High Courts with extraordinary powers to pass any order to achieve the ends of justice.

In October 2022, the Punjab and Haryana High Court held that a Muslim girl, after attaining puberty, can enter into a lawful marriage despite not being 18 years of age, the minimum age for marriage under secular laws.

The High Court’s ruling came in a habeas corpus petition filed by a Muslim man, who alleged that his girlfriend had been illegally detained in her home. He claimed that they wanted to get married.

The child rights panel had argued that the High Court’s ruling had essentially allowed child marriage in violation of the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriage Act.

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