Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has directed the authorities to produce the woman, who is housed at government-run women’s shelter in Chembur, in the court on December 9 while hearing a habeas corpus (produce person in court) petition by her interfaith partner. The court has also asked the man to remain present in the court on that day.
The Muslim man had filed a petition seeking immediate release of his partner, a Hindu woman, from a protection home alleging that she has been illegally detained and that her detention was unlawful and in violation of her fundamental rights. The man has also sought “adequate police protection” apprehending threat to his and his partner’s life.
Meanwhile, a bench of Justice Bharati Dangre and Justice Manjusha Deshpande has restrained the police from arresting him in an extortion case filed by the woman’s parents. The man has filed a pre arrest bail plea which is likely to be heard on December 5 before the sessions court.
The woman had left her parental home voluntarily and was living with the petitioner in a consensual live-in relationship for several months, claimed the petition. The woman’s decision to live with the petitioner was an ‘informed, and deliberate choice’, made without any coercion, undue influence or external pressure, the plea added.
The woman’s notarised affidavit and her self-recorded video has been placed on record along with the petition to show that she and the man have been living as a couple for several months of their own free will and without any coercion. In the video, the woman has stated that she chose to marry the man and convert to Islam ‘of her own free will, without any coercion or undue influence’.
Seeking her immediate release from the shelter home, the petition states that she has not neither committed any crime nor is accused of any offence. “The act of placing detenu in detention despite her clear and repeated expressions of her free will and autonomy amounts to a violation of her right to life and liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the plea added.
