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Legalise Hindu cross caste marriages

Suggests Law Commission

Ashutosh Sarkar
The Law Commission has recommended amendments to Hindu family laws to legalise marriages among people of different castes and ensure Hindu women's equal rights to inheritance of ancestral property.
The nine-point recommendation, sent to the law ministry on August 7, also calls for legislating a law to make Hindu marriage registration mandatory.
According to existing laws in Bangladesh, Hindus cannot marry members of a different caste. The law commission has called the practice discriminatory.
Many people are interested in marrying people of other castes through affidavits before the magistrate, which process is known as court marriage.
"A law can be formulated to give legitimacy to marriages among Hindus of different castes and creeds," the commission said in the 18-page recommendations report, prepared under a project, titled "Promoting Access to Justice and Human Rights in Bangladesh”.
“Legal equality will be established if cross caste marriages are legalised," it said. "It will also eliminate caste-related inhumanity in society gradually, and it will be possible for establishing an undivided society.”
The commission also recommended passing a law with a provision of mandatory registration of Hindu marriages within 15 working days into the wedding and with another provisionfor penalty andjail terms for its violation.
A bill on Hindu Marriage Registration Act 2012, which makes marriage registration voluntary for Hindus, is now with the Jatiya
Sangsad for consideration. The law needs to be formulated with the provision of mandatory registration, according to the government body, which makes recommendations or proposals for legal reforms.
It also views that the law should have a provision that a husband and a wife can divorce each other through court for specific reasons.
Some Hindu women have been leading miserable lives since existing Hindu laws do not approve of divorce and polygamy, the commission said, adding that polygamy without valid reasons should be considered a punishable offence.
The commission suggested that husbands, wives, unmarried males or females and widows and widowers should have rights to child adoption, and there should be no difference between boys and girls regarding adoption.
About Hindu women's inheritance to property, the commission recommended amending the related laws so that girls enjoy equal rights to parental property.
The existing laws strip Hindu girls of parental assets if they have brothers. Where a couple have no sons, their unmarried daughters and married daughters giving birth to a son can have right to their property.Worse yet, infertile daughters, widowed daughters and daughters giving birth to female children are deprived ofparentalproperty.
The commission said hindrances such as physical or mental diseases, virginity and infertility of women in inheriting ancestral property had to be removed.
It added that inheritance laws should be revised with such provisions so that female children can enjoy rights equal to those of male children in inheriting property. At the