Bombay High Court stands by Hindu-Muslim couple from Rajasthan, help them reunite

November,26,2015: The Bombay High Court reunited a Hindu-Muslim couple from Rajasthan, after the woman was taken away by her parents and forcibly married-off to another man later.

Rajasthan Police produced the woman on November 23 before a bench of justices Ranjit More and Shalini Phansalkar-Joshi on a Habeas Corpus petition filed by her husband (whom she had married earlier).

The woman from the minority community fell in love with a Hindu man and they eloped from their village in Rajasthan. They went to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh where they got married on June 8 this year, as per Hindu rites.

However, the woman’s relatives took her away to her parents’ house on the pretext that she would be brought back to her matrimonial home in Madhya Pradesh. Later, she was forced to marry another man in Gujarat.

Meanwhile, the man (to whom she was married earlier) moved to Mumbai and filed a police complaint at Ambarnath town in nearby Thane district stating that his wife, who was pregnant with his child, was missing. He urged the police to trace her and bring her back.

After the police could not find the woman, the husband filed a Habeas Corpus petition in the high court urging that police may be asked to find her.

The petitioner told the high court that he received a telephone call from his wife saying that she was kept in wrongful confinement at a place in Rajasthan.

The HC directed the Rajasthan Police to visit the woman’s house and she was produced before the court on November 23.

The judges asked the woman if she wished to go back to her parents or stay with her husband who had filed the Habeas Corpus petition. To this, she replied that her choice would be to join her husband in Mumbai to whom she was married earlier.

The bench then ordered that the couple be reunited and allowed them to stay together.

HT

Read Matrimonial Laws @ LatestLaws.com- 

• Anand Marriage Act,1909
• Arya Marriage Validation Act,1937
• Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act,1987
  • Commission of Sati (Prevention) Rules,1988
• Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act,1939
• Divorce Act,1869
• Dowry Prohibition Act,1961
  • Dowry Prohibition (Maintenance of Lists of Presents to the Bride and Bridegroom) Rules,1985
• Family Courts Act,1984
• Foreign Marriage Act,1969
  • Foreign Marriage Rules,1970
  • Foreign Marriage Rules,1970
• Foreign Marriage Act,1969
• Guardians and Wards Act,1890
• Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act,1956
• Hindu Marriage Act,1955
• Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act,1956
• Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act,1956
• Hindu Succession Act,1956
  • Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act,2005
• Indian and Colonial Divorce Jurisdiction Act, 1940
• Indian Christian Marriage Act,1872
• Kazis Act,1880
• Maternity Benefits Act,1961
  • Maternity Benefit to (Mines and Circus) Rules,1963
• Matrimonial Causes (War Marriages) Act 1948
• Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act,1937
• Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act,1986
• National Commission for Women Act,1990
• Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act,1936
• Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act,2005
  • Manual for PWDVA Protection Officers
  • Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Rules,2006
• Special Marriage Act,1954