The Act of 1935 contained provisions allowing marriage registration even if the bride and groom had not reached the legal ages of 18 and 21, as required by law.On the opposition’s objections to the ‘Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Bill, 2024’, Sarma maintained that a similar law in the form of Centre’s ‘The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954’ was already in place.”It was passed when the late Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister. We haven’t taken Nehru’s extremist view and banned everything like talisman, mantra, and kavach,” he said.The CM claimed that the state government has refrained from implementing the Central Act as it will get in the way of traditional systems, especially prevalent among tribal communities of the state.”The simple design of our bill is not to prevent anyone from their traditional practices, but we stop anything done with ulterior motives,” he added.The Congress and AIUDF, which had moved amendments to the bill for defining evil practices and whether it would disturb traditional systems, agreed to withdraw their amendments following the reply from the chief minister.Independent MLA Akhil Gogoi, who had also moved amendments to the bill, however, did not withdraw his objection that the definition of ‘evil practice’ was not mentioned specifically in the Bill.
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