Guwahati, Jul 18 (IANS): The Assam government on Thursday decided to repeal the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorce Registration Act and Rules 1935 through the Assam Repealing Bill 2024.
The government will table legislation in the next monsoon session of the state Assembly, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said after the Cabinet meeting.
“We have taken a significant step to ensure justice for our daughters and sisters by putting additional safeguards against child marriage,” he said.
“In the meeting of the Assam Cabinet today we have decided to repeal the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorce Registration Act and Rules 1935 vide the Assam Repealing Bill 2024,” he added.
He said that to bring parity in the registration of marriage and divorce, the state cabinet has accorded approval to ‘the Assam Repealing Bill, 2024’ which will be placed before the next monsoon session of the Assam Assembly for consideration.
The Cabinet has also directed that suitable legislation be brought for the registration of Muslim marriages in Assam, to be considered by the next Assembly session.
The Chief Minister recently told the Assembly that under the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act, 1935, the marriage of people under the age of nine or ten was allowed.
“We launched a tirade against child marriage. However, some got bail in the high court as this Act allows the registration of underage marriages. Is it not our responsibility to amend and rectify this Act,” he said.
Earlier, the Assam government was mulling to bring legislation on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) post Lok Sabha polls.
Sarma told the Assembly that under UCC, there are four points: there cannot be marriage without attending a certain age, men cannot have two wives, a woman is entitled to a share of parental property and live-in relationships must be registered so that their offspring can also inherit parental properties.”
“In UCC, there are no customs and precedents. UCC does not deal with ways of worship and is not connected to one’s faith,” he said.
The Assam government had earlier announced that the proposed law on UCC would exempt tribal people.
Last year in October Assam Police arrested more than 1,000 people in a massive state-wide crackdown against child marriage.
As per the state government data, 3,098 persons were arrested in the first two months of last year under the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. The state registered 4,363 cases of child marriage since February 3, this year.
Child marriage will be eradicated from Assam completely by 2026, the Chief Minister had said.
The Assam government in last year’s budget launched the ‘Mission for Prevention of Child Marriage’ in the state with an allocation of Rs 200 crore.
According to the Census 2011, Muslims account for 34.22 per cent of the entire state, while Hindus and other religions account for the rest of the 3.12 crore total population of Assam.