NO ALIMONY to Live-In Partners : SC
SC says that in four conditions Live-In partners can be provided ALIMONY to their female partners. The female partners would be even someone elses wife (proxy spouse). Even fixed period Contract Marriages (now in the offing) could be covered for Alimony, as now sanctioned by SC conditions.
ADULTERY REDIFINED : SC says "merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a domestic relationship". Which also means that one-night stands could ALSO NOT amount to adultery.
Keep Smiling .... Hemant Agarwal
SC limits live-in partner’s right to alimony
( Times of India, Mumbai Edition, 22nd October, 2010, page no. 14 )
SC Puts 4 Conditions For A Live-In To Be Under Purview Of Domestic Violence
1) A live-in couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses
2) They must be of legal age to marry
3) They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried
4) They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday pruned the scope of live-in relationships under Domestic Violence Act, 2005, thus preventing many women who have been dumped by their partners from claiming maintenance. The SC hinged its judgment on the fact that Parliament, while enacting the DV Act, had mentioned “relationships in the nature of marriage” and not “live-in relationships” and said both were quite different from each other.
A bench comprising Justices Markandey Katju and T S Thakur culled out four important grounds from the definition of ‘common law marriage’ posted on the web pages of Wikipedia and said that arrangements commonly understood as live-in relationship must satisfy these conditions to be recognised as a “relationship in the nature of marriage” under the DV Act. When a live-in partners satisfied these four conditions in addition to living together under one roof, only then could a deserted woman move an application before the concerned area magistrate seeking maintenance from the man who deserted her, said the court. The SC was aware that laying down these conditions would exclude a lot of live-in partners from claiming maintenance from their male partners in case of desertion. “No doubt the view we are taking would exclude many women who have had a live-in relationship from the benefit of the 2005 Act, but then it is not for this court to legislate or amend the law,” said Justice Katju, who wrote the judgment. The SC also stated that "merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a domestic relationship" under the DV Act. Moreover, “if a man has a keep' whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for s*xual purpose and/or as a servant, it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage” under the Act.
This judgment came in a case where a woman, D Patchaiammal, had a two-year relationship with an already married man D Velusamy, who later deserted her to be with his wife Lakshmi and family. Twelve years after the alleged desertion, Patchaiammal moved a Coimbatore family court seeking maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The family court held that Velusamy was married to Patchaiammal and not to Lakshmi and ordered payment of alimony. The Madras HC upheld the family court's order. Velusamy appealed against it.
The SC set aside the trial court and HC orders saying without giving notice to Lakshmi, the courts could not have come to a finding that Velusamy was married to Patchaiammal because if he was married to Lakshmi before, he could not have married Patchaiammal without divorcing Lakshmi. It said that Patchaiammal would also have to explain why she filed the maintenance plea under Section 125 of CrPC after a lapse of 12 years. The SC remanded the matter back to the family court asking it to determine all these issues afresh.
