HC bars educational institutions from asking marital status of admission-seekers
The High Court (HC) on Thursday asked educational institutions not to inquire about the marital status of admission-seekers.
The High Court bench of Justice Naima Haidar and Justice Md Khairul Alam handed down the verdict following a writ petition filed by advocates Fariha Ferdous and Nahid Sultana in 2017 over the difficulty a rape survivor faced while applying for admission to a nursing college.
Deputy Attorney General Amit Das Gupta represented the state before the court on Thursday.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
The case was filed based on a news article headlined "What the girl will do now?". According to the report, on 6 June 2013, a class X girl was raped but the rapists denied the allegation. When the girl became pregnant, she was admitted to the one-stop crisis centre of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital and she lodged a complaint against the rapist, said the report.
Police arrested the rapist and a DNA test proved that the rapist was the father of the child.
Later, a court ordered sending the girl to a residential centre of the government's Women Assistance Programme in Rajshahi. While living at the centre, the girl appeared in the Secondary School Certificate examination and during her exam, she gave birth to a baby boy on 19 February 2014.
She also passed the SSC exam with a GPA of 4.3 and appeared for her Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination from there. Later, she was sent to her house and also passed the HSC exam with a GPA of 3.17.
Meanwhile, in mid-2017, the court sentenced the rapist to life imprisonment and asked him to bear the expenses of the baby boy. The court also fined him Tk1 lakh.
The girl was put in the category of married women during the public examinations though she was unmarried. She was unable to fill up the admission form for a nursing college due to her marital status as she was not married and had a child.
Following the writ, the HC in late 2018 issued a rule asking the government to explain why the option of marital status in the admission process of educational institutions should not be declared unconstitutional. The HC also issued another rule asking the government to explain why directives should not be given to formulating a meaningful policy in this regard.
The court also asked to take steps so the girl can get enrolled in a nursing college immediately.
