5yrs after HC order: Govt yet to drop the word ‘Kumari’ from Kabin Nama

The High Court in a 2019 judgement directed the government to drop the word "kumari", or virgin, from the marriage registration form, terming it defamatory and discriminatory against women.

It had also asked the authorities concerned to replace "kumari" with the word "unmarried", preferably within six months from the judgement copy's receipt date.

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Remove word ‘Kumari’ from Kabinnama: HC

The order, however, has not yet been executed and the word "kumari" still exists in the form called "Kabin Nama".

The HC order came following a writ petition filed by Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust in 2014, challenging the legality of clauses five and 21 of the marriage registration form.

Under clause five, a bride requires to make a statement on her marital status.

Under clause 21, a groom has to say whether he has any other wife. And if the answer is "yes", then he needs to mention whether he has taken approval for remarrying from an arbitration council in accordance with the Muslim Family Law Ordinance 1961.

An arbitration council is a platform, led by mayors, chairmen and councilors of local government bodies, which hears family disputes and gives decisions.

Police said they receive many complaints where the word "kumari" is being used as a tool to file cases against women by their husbands over misunderstandings among themselves and their families.

Banaj Kumar Majumder, chief of the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI), wrote a letter to the law secretary on February 4, requesting the law ministry to drop the word "kumari" from the Kabin Nama in line with the HC directive.

"In many cases, divorced women filled up the Kabin Nama stating their marital status as 'kumari'. They sometimes did it willingly while on other occasions this was done upon mutual consensus among the brides and grooms when they remarry," the letter read.

But whenever there is a dispute between a husband and wife, the groom's side files a criminal case on charges of fraudulence and breaching trust over stating "kumari" in the Kabin Nama despite being a divorcee or widow, it added.

Husbands also often use it as an excuse for not giving alimony to their wives, said PBI officials.

In the letter, the PBI chief also requested the law ministry to add an additional query under clause 21 of the Kabin Nama.

If the marriage registration form is amended in line with the PBI request, a groom already married will have to state under clause 21 how many wives he has.

The PBI chief said news of people having several wives breaching the Shariah law often goes viral on social media. Such incidents are also widely reported by the print and electronic media.

A law ministry official, who is aware of the PBI chief's letter, said the ministry has already taken an initiative to amend the marriage registration form. He, however, refused to go into detail as he was not entitled to talk on the issue.

Giving an example of how the word "kumari" is being misused, the PBI chief said a male and a female, both celebrities and divorced, got married on February 27, 2020.

As a dispute arose among the couple -- Zahid and Sumona (not their real names) -- a few months later, Zahid filed a case with a Dhaka court on August 10 that year accusing Sumona and her parents of fraudulence and breaching trust.

In the case statement, he said though Sumona was a divorcee, she in connivance with her parents stated in the Kabin Nama that she was a "virgin".

Upon a court order, the PBI investigated the case and found that Sumona mentioned herself as "virgin" in the Kabin Nama at the insistence of Zahid. The PBI submitted a report to the court, clearing Sumona and her parents of the charges and the court subsequently dismissed the case.

Zahid divorced Sumona later that year.

"Such cases are being filed nowadays and women are being subjected to disgrace," Banaj Kumar told The Daily Star recently.