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Informist, Monday, Aug. 3, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court Monday said that women can file charges of cruelty against their partners in live-in relationships that qualify as "relationships in the nature of marriage" with the intent to marry being established as an intrinsic part thereof. Not every live-in relationship would attract the penal provision, and the initial burden of proof would be on the female live-in-partner seeking protection of the law that there was an intent to marry in their live-in relationship. "Cruelty, any which way, does not check at the door, whether the house it enters is that of a married woman or not. Once it enters, its propensity to destroy is aggravated," the court said.  

 

The top court said that not a single person goes into a relationship knowing or anticipating that cruelty may be meted out to them. When a couple sets out on their journey, it is always, one presumes, with the best of intentions and to bring joyfulness of all forms, the court said. With the passage of time, however, some relationships may go down this troublesome path. The law must provide for the same, it said. The distinction between "married" and "live-in relationship in the nature of marriage", insofar as it relates to the protection envisaged by Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, has no rational nexus with the object of preventing domestic violence and is as such offensive to Article 14 of the Constitution of India, it said.

 

In the earlier days, marriage was perceived as the only method by which two individuals could live together for a lifetime, and doing so without that was considered taboo, the court said. Marriage was considered sacrosanct; however, this is undoubtedly a changing phenomenon, it said. Living together, prior to marriage, is not unheard of or unacceptable anymore, it said. 

 

The top court rejected a plea by Lokesh B.H. seeking to quash criminal proceedings initiaded against him by his partner. The petitioner had said that since he was not legally married to the complainant, he was exempt from prosecution under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code. Section 498A makes it a crime for a husband or his family to subject a woman to cruelty, carrying a penalty of up to three years in prison and a fine. Cruelty includes physical or mental harm, harassment to force dowry demands, or actions that push a woman to suicide.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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