Honour of the 'Rule of Law' restored

The supremacy and inviolability of the ‘rule of law’ is signature tune of the Indian Constitution. It is implicit in the hallowed ‘right of life’ as envisaged in the Article 21 of the Constitution to choose the marriage partners according to one’s own personal choice devoid of any extraneous influences, pressures and considerations as long as it does not militate against the recognized Personal Law. Regarding Hindus, the Hindu Marriage Act is the stand-alone Legislation clearly enumerating and elucidating about the persons who are ‘out of bounds’ in the form of ‘spinda relationship’ and 'Degree of prohibited relationship' for the purposes of marriage. Bare facedly, it will show that it does not put an absolute embargo on same-gotra marriage . The marriage with a person placed beyond the third generation in the line of ascent through the mother, and the fifth generation in the line of ascent through the father is perfectly valid and legal. The revulsion and indignation against such marriages is self-seeking orchestrated by certain disgruntled and megalomaniac fringe elements in the society for their own vested interests. The time brooks no delay for the sensitive and sensitized citizenry to take up the cudgel against such fissiparous and sadistic segment of the society. Hopefully, the historic judgment delivered by Karnal Session Judge Ms. Vani Gopal Sharma on March 30, 2010 pronouncing death sentence to five persons in a case of honour killings of love-birds Babli and Manoj will not be just a flash in the pan. This judicial verdict will go a long way in preventing the recurrence of such gory and egregious incidents if sane and rational strata of the society do not allow their constitutionally guarnteed freedoms and other rights (universally recognised as indispensable to secure bare minimal existence as a human being) be crushed down by handful of fanatics. The verdict has handed out an unequivocal signal that attempted ‘Talibanisation’ of Haryanvi pristine culture and ethos embedded in the social weal of tolerance, brotherhood, mutualism, progressiveness and non-violence will be dealt with iron hands and no body will be allowed to toy up with the 'Rule of Law'.