The report of the committee, which comprises Advocate Generals and Home Secretaries of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, suggests various legislative and social changes. However, there is a significant degree of disagreement in the suggestions given by former Punjab Advocate General R S Cheema and senior standing counsel for the UT Administration Anupam Gupta.

The report is yet to be submitted to the High Court. Asserting that marriage by choice is quite uncommon if one keeps in view the overall big picture, Cheema says in his report, "The untraditional marriages, though very much part of the social set-up, have now become a routine feature and are bound to assume much higher proportions."

Endorsed by Haryana Advocate General H S Hooda, Cheema suggests, "It is necessary to introduce provisions for immediate and hassle-free registration of traditionally-unacceptable marriages by providing a simple procedure and liberalising the restriction of territorial jurisdiction."

Terming the problem as "too complicated and multilayered", Cheema says it will be futile to indulge in an exercise of suggesting ways of a social change.

"The parties must be given a forum to ask for security in appropriate cases and situations. An authority or functionary could be assigned the task of examining such prayer and passing an appropriate reasoned order," Cheema says, while suggesting amendment in the existing enactment for compulsory registration of marriages.

However, advocate Anupam Gupta says, "I would beg to disagree with the opinion that 'only a limited initiative' can be taken by the committee in the prevailing situation and that 'it shall be futile' for the committee to indulge in an exercise of suggesting ways of social change."

Making it clear that judicial intervention is required in such cases than asking the parties to approach some other forum, Gupta states, "Judicial intervention and activism in the field of marriage by choice and against coercion is no less justified than such intervention in the field of, say, ecology and environmental control."

Gupta says, "Even if such security-related litigation by young couples apprehensive of a parental or community backlash were to occupy a major part of the judicial docket, the High Court will, in my opinion, be better of discharging such a responsibility. For courts to be faint-hearted will be a betrayal of the judicial function."

The senior standing counsel adds that judges and lawyers could neither avoid such questions nor recoil from addressing and deciding them for the fear of kindling a social disquiet.