The Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking guidelines to “register live-in relationships” with Chief Justice DY Chandrachud calling it a “hare-brained idea”. The plea filed by a lawyer sought framing of rules and guildelines by the Centre for registration of every live-in relationship, citing rise in crimes like rape and murder allegedly committed by couples living together.
In her Public Interest Litigation (PIL), lawyer Mamta Rani said that the idea was to prevent crimes caused by live-in partners and to enhance the social security of couples living together. She referred to the brutal killing of Shraddha Walkar allegedly by her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala.
The CJI-led bench asked the counsel for petitioner, if she wanted to foster the security of these people or wanted them not to get into live-in relationships.
“What does the Centre has to do with registration of live-in relationships? What kind of hare-brained idea is this? It is high time this court start imposing cost on petitioners who file these kinds of PILs. Dismissed,” the bench also comprising Justices PS Narasimha and JB Pardiwala said.
The plea said that registration of live-in relationships would lead to accurate information being available to both the live-in partners about each other and also to the government about each of them regarding their marital status, criminal history and other relevant details, PTI reported.
The PIL also said there has been a “huge increase in false rape cases filed by women wherein they claim to be living in live-in relationships with the accused, and it is always difficult for the courts to find out from the evidence whether the fact of living in live-in relationships is proved by the backing of evidence”.
