SUPREME COURT OF INDIA ON LIVE-IN

RELATIONSHIP

Posted: Wednesday, Mar 24, 2010 at 0243 hrs New

Delhi:

The Supreme Court threw its weight behind live-in

relationships on Tuesday, observing that for a man
and a woman in love, to live together is part of the
right to life, and not a “criminal offence”.

“If two people, man and woman, want to live

together, who can oppose them? What is the offence
they commit here? This happens because of the
cultural exchange between people,” a special three-
judge bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) K G
Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B S
Chauhan observed.

The court was hearing a batch of petitions filed by

actress Khusboo to quash 22 FIRs filed against her by
Tamil activist groups and forums for her alleged
comments on pre-marital sex in interviews five years
ago.

“If living together is an offence, then the first

complaint should be filed against the Supreme Court,
because we have permitted living together,” the court
said. It was referring to a 2006 judgment in which the
Supreme Court directed the administration and police
across the country to protect runaway couples from
harassment, and to initiate action against those
resorting to violence.

“It is part of right to life to go away with someone

you love,” the bench said. The Supreme Court had
earlier stayed a Madras High Court order of April
2008, which allowed criminal proceedings against the
actress.

Khusboo was alleged to have said there was nothing

wrong in “sex before marriage”, provided girls were
careful about pregnancy and sexually-transmitted
diseases. Her detractors argued that the implied
advice to the educated male to not expect virginity
from modern girls was “offensive” and a source of
“public nuisance”.

Living together a part of right to life, not an offence:

To an argument that Khusboo’s comments on pre-
marital sex would mislead gullible youths and
minors, the court said: “The scenario is highly
unlikely in this age of the Internet where we do not
know what our children are doing or where they are
going or what pornography site they are watching.”

To this, the lawyer appearing for one of the

complainants, Miniammal, a lawyer in Tamil Nadu,
responded that “there should be some morality in the
comments made by people of prominence like
Khusboo, who has a temple in Tamil Nadu where she
is worshipped as a goddess”.

“And this is how you revere your goddess, by

dragging her to court?” retorted Justice Verma.

The bench made it clear that Khusboo’s comments

could at best be termed as “personal opinions”, and
did not amount to a cognizable offence.

But the lawyer persisted that Khusboo’s comments

on pre-marital sex would lead to the “spoiling of the
entire institution of marriage. Statements like this can
result in chaos in the society.”

Even as the CJI at this moment responded that people

were better off listening to themselves than to others,
Justice Verma asked the counsel to point out how
many marriages were “spoilt” or how many instances
of chaos happened in the past five years because of
her comments on pre-marital sex.

The court said it cannot stop anyone from expressing

their opinions before reserving the petitions for final
verdict.

Besides, the court said, Khusboo (who was present

during the daylong hearing) had said “nothing new”
about the concept of living together.
Justice Chauhan pointed out that even the “ceiling
limit” for the construction of temples for twin deities
like Radha and Krishna or Ram and Sita were
calculated under the consideration that they were
“husband and wife”.
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