The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court has said that a follower of Islam cannot be in a live-in relationship, particularly if the spouse is alive.
“The Islamic tenets do not permit live-in relationships during the subsisting marriage. The position may be different if the two persons are unmarried and the parties being adults choose to lead their lives in a way of their own,” said the bench on Wednesday.
With this observation, a bench of Justice A.R. Masoodi and Justice A.K. Srivastava refused to provide police protection to petitioners Sneha Devi and Mohd Shadab Khan, both natives of Bahraich district.
The petitioners claimed they were in a live-in relationship but the woman’s parents lodged an FIR against Khan for kidnapping and inducing their daughter to marry him.
The petitioners sought police protection saying they are adults and as per a Supreme Court order, they were free to stay in a live-in relationship.
On enquiry, the bench found that Khan was already married (to one Farida Khatoon in 2020) and even had a daughter. Considering this fact, the court declined to provide him police protection on the grounds of the SC verdict which permits a live-in relationship. The bench instead said that Islam does not permit such a relationship, especially under the circumstances of the present case.
Expressing that constitutional morality and social morality in the matter of marriage institution requires to be balanced, failing which social coherence for achieving the object of peace and tranquillity in the society would fade and disappear, the bench directed the police that the petitioner Sneha Devi be sent to her parents under security.
The bench observed: “The constitutional morality may come to the rescue of such a couple and the social morality settled through the customs and usages over ages may give way to the constitutional morality and protection under Article 21 of the Constitution of India may step in to protect the cause. The case before us is, however, different.”
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