India, Madurai: The Madras High Court in Madurai has held that a marriage between minor girl and boy will not be cancelled automatically without either of them obtaining a decree of divorce from family court within two years of their attaining the legal age for marriage. A division bench here comprising justices S Manikumar and C T Selvam gave the ruling while setting aside the order of a lower court in Tirunelveli in April last refusing to take on file a woman’s divorce petition on the ground that she was a minor while getting married in 1995 and hence the wedding had automatically become void then itself.

The bench said that though the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, prescribed a minimum age for marriage, the breach of the Act would render the marriage void under Section 11 or Section 12. However, section 13 of the act, which lists out grounds for divorce, states that every child marriage shall be voidable at the option of the contracting party, provided that such marriage, whether consummated or not, was repudiated within two years of either of them attaining the marraige age, 18 for women and 21 for men.