Police are deep into the investigation of the shocking murder case of Shraddha Walkar, who was allegedly killed by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawalla. The couple had met online on a dating application but the affair ended in a brutal and tragic way, with Walkar’s body ‘cut’ into 35 parts after the murder.
The case has ignited a hot debate about live-in relationships in India and their legality. News18 explains whether they are legal in India and if any rights and protections to partners have been granted under law:
‘In the Nature of Marriage’
Although live-in relationships are not socially acceptable in India, they have never been prosecuted under any law, according to a report by Legal Services India. In Indira Sarma vs. V.K.V. Sarma 1, the Supreme Court of India ruled that a live-in or marriage-like relationship is neither a crime nor a sin, despite being socially unacceptable in this country.
In this landmark decision, a bench led by Honble Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan framed guidelines to take along the live-in relationship within the expression relationship in the nature of marriage for the protection of women from domestic violence under the Domestic Violence Act of 2005. There is no statute directly dealing with live-in relationships because it is a newer tradition not widely carried out during the framing of the constitution.
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 was enacted to protect women living in shared households from abusive partners and family members. The term “shared household” is defined in section 2(s) of the PWDV Act and Section 2 (f) of the Act also states that it applies to a relationship in the nature of marriage as well as a married couple.
A woman has the right to seek redress under the PWDV Act if she is subjected to physical, mental, verbal, or economic abuse. Furthermore, remedies are provided for the alienation of a woman’s property and the restriction of access to facilities to which the abused is entitled, the report further explains. This legislation provides several rights and protections to the abused. As a result of establishing the existence of a marriage-like relationship, a woman in a live-in relationship is entitled to all available remedies.
The Supreme Court conferred a wider meaning to the words aggrieved person under Section 2(a) of the said Act through the case of D. Veluswamy v. D. Patchaiammal 2, the report further stated. It also listed the following five components of a live-in relationship:
- Both parties must act as husband and wife in public and be recognised as husband and wife.
- They must be of legal marriageable age.
- They should be eligible for marriage. Qualification here means that neither partner should be living with a spouse at the time of the relationship.
- They must have lived together voluntarily for an extended period of time.
- They had to have lived in the same house together.
The Supreme Court also noted that not all live-in relationships qualify as marriage-like relationships for the purposes of the Domestic Violence Act. To obtain such a benefit, the aforementioned conditions must be met and proven by evidence.
Palimony in India
The term “palimony” was coined in the United States by the California Superior Court in the famous case of Marvin v. Marvin in 1976. ‘Palimony’ refers to the payment of support to a woman who has lived with a man for an extended period of time without marrying him and is then abandoned by him. This case involved the famous film actor Lee Marvin, with whom a lady named Michelle lived for many years without marrying him before he abandoned her and she claimed palimony. As a result, the concept of palimony has been considered and developed in numerous court decisions in the United States, states a report by the Indian Institute of Legal Studies.
The report explains that in India, the Supreme Court discussed the meaning of the word “palimony” for the first time in the case of Chanmuniya v. Virendra Kumar Singh Kushwaha and D. Velusamy v. D. Patchaiammal, and came to the conclusion that palimony could be granted in the case of a live-in relationship.
Alimony is granted in India under various other provisions such as Section 25 of the Hindu Marriage Act, Section 125 of the Cr.P.C, Domestic Violence Act 2005, and Section 37 of the Special Marriage Act 1954, but the sticking point is that no specific provision regarding ‘palimony’ has been made in any statute of the country. As a result, whether palimony can be considered equivalent to alimony has become a hotly debated topic.
According to a report in the Jus Corpus Law Journal, a woman who is legally wedded to a man in India can claim maintenance from him under section 125 of the CrPC. However, if a woman can demonstrate that her live-in relationship was in the nature of marriage and was a domestic relationship, she can seek maintenance under section 20(3) of the Protection of Domestic Violence Act of 2005. The establishment of the nature of marriage has been mentioned above.
Read all the Latest Explainers here
Comments
0 comment