A Daughter Remains A Daughter Even After Marriage: Karnataka HC

The Karnataka High Court struck down a Sainik Welfare Board guideline that did not allow married daughters to avail dependent cards available to children of former defence personnel. Earlier, the right was only given to the sons.

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Court judgement

On January 2, a single-judge bench of the HC ruled an order saying that if the son remains a son, married or unmarried, a daughter shall remain a daughter, married or unmarried. “If the act of marriage does not change the status of the son, the act of marriage cannot and shall not change the status of a daughter,” it added.

A dependent card is like an identity card which is issued to the family members of ex-defence officers, so that their children can avail welfare benefits and other opportunities.

Justice M Nagaprasanna has also asked the central government to consider a more gender-neutral term to refer to previous defence personnel, instead of calling them ‘ex-servicemen’. He also said that he holds the exclusion of a married daughter for grant of an I-card which is provided to the dependents of ex-servicemen in terms of guideline 5(c) violative of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India. “I strike down and annihilate the words ‘till married’ in the aforesaid guideline,” he further said.

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What is the case?

Priyanka Patil, 31, a daughter of a former army person, Subedar Ramesh Khandappa Police Patil, who died during ‘Operation Parakram’ in 2001, filed the case. In 2021, she approached the HC after the Sainik Welfare Board did not issue her a dependent card, saying she was married.

Priyanka was only 10 years old when her father died. In 2020, she wanted to be identified as a dependant of a former defence personnel to get 10% reservation in the recruitment of assistant professors in government degree colleges in Karnataka. However, the Board denied her the right due to her marital status.

While hearing the plea, the HC stated that the Board’s rule violates constitutional rights which guarantee equality. According to the HC, the guideline was a “depiction of gender stereotypes that existed decades ago, and if permitted to remain would be an anachronistic obstacle in the march to women’s equality”.

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