A married man cannot be prosecuted for participating in a consensual, live-in relationship with an adult woman, the Allahabad High Court said in a significant statement recently as it heard a criminal writ petition filed by a live-in couple from Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur. The couple had sought quashing a police case, filed by the woman’s mother, against them.
The court underlined the separation of ‘morality’ and the law and said that in the latter’s book, no prima facie offence seemed to have been committed by the man, and that the live-in relationship with the adult woman appeared consensual.
The court also stressed its actions to protect citizens’ rights could not be dictated by social opinion or morality.
Accordingly, the court directed the police not to arrest the petitioner couple and also restrained all members of the female petitioner’s family from causing any harm to the couple.
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