Madras High Court sets aside order to extend Thalikku Thangam scheme to those who earn up to ₹12,000 a month

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court has set aside a single judge’s August 12, 2024 order, which held that the 2011 Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Memorial Marriage Assistance Scheme (popularly known as Thalikku Thangam scheme) should be extended to all those who earn up to ₹12,000 a month and not be confined to those earning below ₹6,000 a month.

First Division Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G. Arul Murugan agreed with Advocate General (A-G) P.S. Raman that the single judge ought not to have expanded the scope of the writ petition before him and ordered the beneficiaries of the government scheme, for giving gold during young women’s marriage, must be determined based on the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

“We are of the considered view that the direction issued by the learned single judge was not only beyond the scope of the writ petition but also amounts to substituting one executive policy for the other,” the Bench said after pointing out the dispute before the single judge was only whether the petitioner S. Chithra, a domestic worker from Chennai, was earning less than ₹6,000 a month or not.

“In the absence of there being any law of the land that the benefit of marriage assistance shall be extended to those who are earning minimum wages or less, extension of that benefit to a larger class is only in the realm of the executive function and could not be ordered in exercise of judicial power under Article 226 (writ jurisdiction of High Courts) of the Constitution,” the Bench wrote.

Authoring the verdict, the Chief Justice said: “In the present case, the only basis for the learned single judge to hold that the policy was bad, is a comparison with the minimum wages. We do not think that was the correct approach to be adopted. In any case, the policy was not under challenge before the court. Therefore, on the other count also… the direction of the learned single judge cannot be sustained in law.”

Further, noting the practice of the State gifting gold for young women’s marriage was discontinued from August 2, 2022 and had now been restructured as Moovalur Ramamirtham Ammaiyar Higher Education Assurance Scheme, the judges said the writ petitioner’s 2021 application, seeking gold for her daughter’s marriage, could be considered if her income was less than ₹6,000 a month.

The orders were passed after the A-G said the single judge’s direction to extend the scheme to all those who earned up to ₹12,000 a month might lead to a plethora of writ petitions demanding the benefit with retrospective effect and the State would not be in a position to bear the financial burden, especially given the skyrocketing prices at which gold was being sold at present.