Taking in view the recent murder of Shraddha Walkar by her live-in partner Aaftab Amin Poonawala, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Central government to frame rules and guidelines for registration of live-in partnerships in the country.
Filed by Advocate Mamta Rani, the petition prayed for a direction to the Central Government to formulate rules for registration of live-in relationships.
The petition contended that time and again, this Court had been the protector of live-in partners and passed numerous judgments, which had the effect of giving protection to the members of live-in partnership, be it women, men or even the children born out of such relationships.
The plea contended that lack of rules and guidelines over live-in partnerships had resulted in live-in partners committing major crimes, such as rape and murder. The petitioner exemplified the murder case of Shraddha Walkar.
The 27-year-old was murdered by her 28-year-old live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala on May 18, 2022. Aaftab cut Shraddha’s body into 35 pieces and later disposed of the same in Chhattarpur forests over the next 18 days during night time, in order to avoid suspicion.
The petitioner claimed 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, their criminal history and other relevant details.
The plea further sought direction to the Union government to get a database regarding the exact number of people involved in live-in relationships in the country.
Alleging that the Central government’s failure to register live-in partnerships violated Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution, the petition said that the problem could be solved by making registration of live-in partnership mandatory.
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The plea highlighted the significant increase in the number of false rape cases being filed by the women, in which the women claimed to be living in live-in relationships with the accused. It said this posed a great difficulty for the Courts as it was difficult to find out from the evidence whether the fact of living in a live-in relationship was correct or not.
Registration of live-in relationships would work as vital evidence to prove whether staying in such a relationship was correct or not, besides keeping a check on whether the persons entering into such relationships were doing so with an ulterior motive, added the petition.