Inter-caste marriage: SC to hear couple's plea for protection

The Supreme Court today agreed to hear on Friday the plea of a newly-wed couple seeking protection from their kin, apprehending threat to their lives for having an inter-caste marriage.
The couple's plea was mentioned for urgent hearing before a vacation bench of Justices P C Pant and Amitava Roy, with their lawyer seeking a direction to the police to grant them protection.
The court allowed the plea of lawyer Sugriv Dubey and fixed the matter for hearing on Friday.
According to the plea, an adult girl solemnised marriage with one Ashish, a resident of Uttar Pradesh, in an Arya Samaj temple as per Hindu rites against the wishes of her family.

The girl, hailing from Haryana, was residing "happily with her husband in Faridabad", the plea said and claimed that her parents, on the directions of a 'khap panchayat', were trying kill her and her husband.
Khap panchayats, prevalent in northern India, are village councils generally dominated by members of a single clan or caste.
The couple has claimed they had approached the police in Faridabad seeking protection, but did not get any support.
"The petitioner had intimated the SHO, Faridabad that they will be murdered as the Khap of Haryana has decided to get them eliminated, but the police has not taken any step," the plea alleged.