Married Muslims can’t claim rights in a live-in-relationship: Allahabad HC

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has held that a person reposing faith in Islam cannot claim any rights in the nature of a live-in relationship, particularly when the person has a living spouse.

The court said that a follower of Islam cannot be in a live-in relationship, particularly if his spouse is alive. “Islamic tenets do not permit a live-in relationship during a 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,” the court observed.

A division bench comprising Justices Attau Rahman Masoodi and Ajai Kumar Srivastava made the remarks recently while hearing a petition by a Hindu woman and Muslim man, who said they were in a live-in relationship, seeking protection from police action. The woman’s parents filed a case against the man, accusing him of abducting her and forcing her to marry him.

With this observation, the court refused to provide police protection to the petitioners, both from UP’s Bahraich district. The petitioners are from different faiths.

The couple sought the protection of their life and liberty, saying that they were adults and free to stay together. However, the court noted in its order on April 30 that the man was already married and had a five-year-old daughter.

The petitioners claimed they were in a live-in relationship, but the woman’s parents lodged an FIR against the man for kidnapping and inducing their daughter to marry him. The petitioners sought police protection, saying they were adults and, as per a Supreme Court order, they were free to stay in a live-in relationship.

The bench, however, found that the man was already married (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 live-in relationships.

The court said that Islamic tenets do not permit a live-in relationship during the subsisting marriage. The position may be different if the two people are unmarried, and the parties being major, choose to lead their lives in a way of their own. The constitutional morality in that situation may come to the rescue of such a couple, and the social morality may give way to constitutional morality.

The court said it could not grant protection to the live-in relationship in view of the rights of the man’s wife and the interests of his child. With this order, the court directed that the woman be sent to her parents’ home under police security.

On April 29, the court had summoned the live-in couple and directed the police to present the man’s wife before the court. The court noted that the man had claimed that his wife lived in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district.

However, the counsel appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government informed the court that the wife was living with her in-laws in Mumbai. The court remarked that this was an “alarming” revelation and said it would take up the question of whether action should be taken against the man and his lawyer for hiding material facts at the next hearing.