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Ch'garh HC: 'Live-in' imported philosophy

NT Bureau, Agencies

Bilaspur: Live-in relationship is an “imported philosophy” and against the “expectations of Indian tenets”, the Chhattisgarh High Court has observed, holding that the institution of marriage no longer controls the people as it did in the past.

The division bench of Justices Goutam Bhaduri and Sanjay S Agrawal made the observation while dismissing an appeal of a man seeking custody of a child born from his live-in relationship with a 36-year-old woman.

The HC said that “livein relationship which is followed in certain sect of the society still continues as a stigma in the Indian culture as it is an imported philosophy contrary to the general expectations of Indian tenets”.

The order was passed on April 30 and a copy was made available recently.

In his plea, Abdul Hameed Siddiqui (43) of Dantewada district said that he was in a live-in relationship with a woman from a different faith and she gave birth to a child.

He moved the HC, located in the state's Bilaspur district, after a family court in Dantewada in December last year rejected his plea for the child's custody, he said.

As per Siddiqui's petition, the order said, a child was born out of their relationship on August 31, 2021. On August 10, 2023, he found the mother and child missing.

That year, he filed a habeas corpus petition seeking that the woman be produced before the HC. The woman had told the HC that she was living with her parents as per her own wish.

Later, Siddiqui again moved the HC after the Dantewada family court did not give him the child's custody. Dismissing Siddiqui's plea, the HC said it was not inclined to stay the family court's decision.