Sisters move SC against father's diktat to stay home

They are young, ambitious and rebellious. And all they want to do is study. However, that's just what their father cannot come to terms with.

They are young, ambitious and rebellious. And all they want to do is study. However, that's just what their father cannot come to terms with.

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So, two sisters from Ludhiana in Punjab have decided to challenge their father's authority to dictate the course of their lives by putting a full stop to their further studies.

Having been forced to quit their native place, Manjeet Kaur and Kiran Kaur (names changed) have now pinned their hopes on the Supreme Court to fulfil their dreams.

A bench headed by Justice P Sathasivam on Friday advised the sisters and their parents to go for mediation after their mother said she wanted to meet them.

The trouble began when Manjeet, a final year B.Com student, told her father, a shopkeeper, that she wanted to pursue MBA.

Kiran, a first-year B.Com student, too wanted to study for an MBA. But their father threatened to withdraw both of them from college.

Faced with the prospect of being put under house arrest, the girls ran away to Gurgaon with a family friend in February this year and joined a Delhi college to complete their study.

Acting on a petition filed by the sisters, the Delhi High Court had, earlier this year, provided them with police protection after they alleged that the family friend's house was "attacked" by a joint team of Punjab and Haryana police.

The team had gone in search of the girls after their father lodged a false kidnapping case. But, wary of being taken back to Ludhiana by the Punjab police, the girls moved the Supreme Court for a restraint order against the force.

"We have gone through hell and would not return to that place where girls continue to be discriminated against. Our family is very orthodox. Our father says education is only for boys," Kiran said.

Kiran recalls how her sister and she were sent to college after intervention by friends. Things became worse for the duo in October last year when they were forced to approach a local ashram for help.

"The ashram members met my father, who had then agreed to send us to the college hostel, only to retract later."

"Within days of reaching Gurgaon, a joint team of Haryana and Punjab police broke into our family friend's house. We were in Delhi at that time and so, were saved from being taken away," adds Kiran.