Muslims cannot claim the right to a live-in relationship, especially when they have a living spouse, the Allahabad High Court has said.

A bench comprising Justices Attau Rahman Masoodi and Ajai Kumar Srivastava made the remark while hearing a petition by a Hindu woman and Muslim man – who said they were in a live-in relationship – seeking protection from police action. The woman’s parents filed a case against the man, accusing him of abducting her and forcing her to marry him.

The couple sought the protection of their life and liberty, saying that they were adults and free to stay together. The court, however, noted in its order on April 30 that the man was already married and had a five-year-old daughter.

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The bench said that Islamic tenets do not “permit live-in relationship during the subsisting marriage”.

It added: “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 constitutional morality in that situation may come to the rescue of such a couple and the social morality…may give way to the constitutional morality.”

The court said it could not grant protection to the live-in relationship in view of the rights of the man’s wife and the interests of his child.

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On April 29, the bench summoned the live-in couple and told the police to present the man’s wife before the court. The court noted that the man had claimed that his wife lived in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district.

However, Additional Advocate General SP Singh, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, told the court that the wife was living with her in-laws in Mumbai. The court remarked that this was an “alarming” revelation and said it would take up the question of whether action should be taken against the man and his lawyer for hiding material facts in the next hearing.

The High Court directed that the woman be sent to her parents’ home under police security.

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