The amendments proposed to the anti-child marriage law defines a child as someone under the age of 21 years and contradicts laws where the legal age of competence is recognised as 18 years.
The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendments) Bill, 2021, which seeks to raise the age of marriage for women to 21 years, amends the definition of child to mean “a male or female who has not completed twenty-one years of age”. It over-rides personal laws of Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Parsis, as well as the Special Marriage Act, 1954.
