'Muslims can't claim rights to live-in relationship when...': Allahabad HC

‘Islamic tenets do not permit live-in relationships during the subsisting marriage. The position may be different if the two persons are unmarried...,’ the high court said

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The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday said that Muslims cannot claim rights in a live-in relationship when they have a living spouse, as such a relationship is not permitted under the tenets of Islam. A bench of justices AR Masoodi and AK Srivastava-I made the observations while hearing a writ petition by Sneha Devi and Mohd Shadab Khan, who were seeking protection from police action after the woman's parents filed a kidnapping case against Khan, and directed that Sneha Devi be sent to her parents under security. The petitioners claimed that they were in a live-in relationship but the woman's parents lodged a police complaint accusing Khan of kidnapping and inducing her to marry him.

They also sought protection of their lives and liberty, saying they were adults and as per the apex court, they were free to reside together in a live-in relationship. "Islamic tenets do not permit live-in relationships during the subsisting marriage. The position may be different if the two persons are unmarried and the parties being major choose to lead their lives in a way of their own," the bench said while declining to pass an order on the issue of protection of life and liberty.



On an inquiry, the bench came to know that Khan was married to Farida Khatoon in 2020 and the couple had a baby. The court observed that constitutional morality and social morality in the matter of marriage institutions required to be balanced, failing which social coherence for achieving the ob.