HC ASKS POLICE TO LOOK INTO LIVE-IN COUPLE’S PETITION FOR PROTECTION

CHANDIGARH : The Punjab and Haryana high court has asked Faridkot senior superintendent of police (SSP) to look into a protection plea from a married woman and a single man.

The high court bench of justice Vivek Puri acted on the plea from the woman and her live-in partner, who had sought directions to the SSP for their protection and safety and appropriate action on their representation in this regard.

“...the present petition is disposed of with a direction to respondent No. 2, the Faridkot SSP, to look into the grievance of the petitioners as projected in the representation,” the court said adding that this order is not to be construed as any expression to validate their relationship or upon any civil and criminal proceedings.

The petitioners had told court that both have attained the age of majority; the woman got married in 2016 and it is still subsisting, but since 2020, she has been living with her partner who is unmarried. They had apprehended threat and danger to their life and liberty at the instance of the woman’s husband and her relatives. This apparently is the first instance in the recent past when a court intervened into the protection plea from a married woman and unmarried live-in partner.

Different benches of the HC have given conflicting judgments on live-in relationships while disposing of pleas for protection filed by runaway couples. On May 11, a bench observed that the “entire social fabric of the society will get disturbed” if the plea is accepted, while another termed live-in relationships “morally and socially not acceptable”. The decision on the second plea was overturned by the Supreme Court on June 4.

These judgments were followed by two other benches ruling that a live-in relationship is not prohibited.