The Supreme Court, in a significant ruling on Thursday, said that a woman in a “live-in” relationship was entitled to maintenance on the breakup of the relationship — provided that such a liaison met four parameters which it spelt out, derived mostly from the principle of “common law” marriages prevalent in some Western countries.
The court laid down these parameters while defining the scope of the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act, passed by Parliament in 2005, saying that Indian society was changing rapidly and was now open to accepting such “live-in” relationships, once considered taboo.
A bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and T.S. Thakur said a “live-in relationship in the nature of marriage”, akin to a “common law” marriage, required the fulfilment of “four conditions” to meet legal parameters on issues such as maintenance. The four conditions were: (a) the couple must hold themselves to society akin to spouses; (b) they must be of legally marriageable age; (c) they must be unmarried; (d) they must have cohabited voluntarily as spouses for a significant period of time.
Since the court found the provisions of the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act 2005 “inadequate” to deal with such cases, it relied on the principles of “common law” marriages in the West to lay down these conditions.
“If a man has a ‘keep’ (concubine) whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant, it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage,” the bench said, while expressing concern over the lacuna left in the 2005 law by the legislature.
In the court’s opinion, this would “exclude” many women in live-in relationship from the benefit of the 2005 Act. “But then it is not for the court to legislate or amend the law. Parliament has used the expression ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ and not ‘live-in’ relationship. The court, in the garb of interpretation, cannot change the language of the statue,” the bench observed.
This significant ruling emerged from an appeal by Mr D. Velusamy, a schoolteacher from Coimbatore, who had lived for over three years with Ms D. Patchaiammal at her father’s residence from 1984 onwards when posted away from home, though he was married to another woman, Lakshmi.
After Mr Velusamy got posted back near home in 1989, he deserted Ms Patchaiammal and only visited her occasionally. She filed a suit for maintenance 14 years later, in 2001, and this was allowed by a family court in Coimbatore, which directed that she be paid Rs 500 per month as maintenance.
The Madras high court upheld the family court’s order, upon which Mr Velusamy challenged the order in the Supreme Court, claiming that he was not married to Ms Patchaiammal.
The Supreme Court found that both the family court and the high court had erred in deciding the case as they had not issued notice to Lakshmi, Mr Velusamy’s first wife, which was the basic requirement of the law as Ms Patchaiammal’s claim of marriage with Mr Velusamy would not hold ground until and unless he had divorced his first wife.
In view of this, the Supreme Court referred the case back to the family court for a fresh trial, with a direction that it should issue notice to Lakshmi and seek her response and proceed on the basis of the same.