New Delhi: The government on Friday announced in Parliament that a bill to raise the minimum legal age of marriage for girls from 18 years to 21 years at par with men and the Electoral Reform Bill will be introduced in the Lok Sabha next week. Arjun Ram Meghwal, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs in Lok Sabha made this announcement while giving information about the government business to be held in the House next week. He said that the Child Marriage (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2021 and the Election Act (Amendment) Bill, 2021 will be discussed and passed after being introduced next week.
Giving information to this effect in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs V Muraleedharan said that after the Child Marriage (Prevention) Amendment Bill is introduced and passed in the Lok Sabha, it will be placed in the Upper House for discussion and passing. The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved amendments to the Child Marriage (Prevention) Act, 2006. Under this amendment, there is a provision to increase the minimum legal age of marriage for girls from 18 years to 21 years at par with men.
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Under the existing legal provision, the minimum age of marriage is 21 years for boys and 18 years for girls. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday also approved the Electoral Reform Bill, which includes a proposal to allow the Election Commission to voluntarily link Aadhaar with the electoral rolls.
According to the bill approved by the cabinet, the election related law will be made gender neutral for military voters. Under the provisions of the current electoral law, the wife of a serviceman would be eligible to register as a military voter but the husband of a female serviceman would not. But the situation will change when this proposed bill is approved by the Parliament.
The Election Commission had asked the Law Ministry to change the term ‘wife’ to ‘spouse’ in the provisions relating to military voters in the Representation of the People Act. Under this, in another provision, it has been said to allow youth to register as voters on four dates every year. Currently, those who turn 18 on or before January 1 are allowed to register as a voter.
The Election Commission of India has been advocating for several ‘cut off dates’ to allow eligible people to register as voters. The commission had told the government that due to the ‘cut-off date’ of January 1, many youths were deprived of the exercise of voter list. With only one ‘cut-off date’, persons who completed 18 years of age on January 2 could not register and had to wait for the next year to register.
The Ministry of Law and Justice had recently told a committee of Parliament that it proposes to amend Section 14B of the Representation of the People Act so that every year there are four ‘cut-off dates’ for registration, January 1, April 1, July and to be included in October.
It is noteworthy that the current winter session of Parliament is scheduled to last till December 23 and a total of four sittings are scheduled after today. (agency)