NEW DELHI: An unusual love story, in which a Muslim man converted to Hinduism to marry a Hindu woman, came unstuck with the woman telling the Supreme Court on Monday that though she had indeed married of her own will, she now preferred to stay with her parents.
The 33-year-old Muslim man converted to Hinduism and assumed the name Aryan Arya to marry a 23-year-old Hindu ‘Jain’ woman in Raipur in February. He knocked the SC’s doors on August 17 with a habeas corpus petition alleging the woman’s parents and a Hindu group were forcibly separating them.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A MKhanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud had taken note of Arya’s counsel Nikhil Nayyar’s allegations and ordered the superintendent of police, Dhamtari, to produce the woman in court on August 27.
Before the judges could interact with her, state advocate general Jugal Kishore Gilda said it was a sham marriage as the man had been divorced twice and had concealed it. The CJI brushed this aside.
The woman repeatedly told the bench that though she had married the man, she would prefer to stay with her parents. She told the bench she was not under parental pressure.
The bench told Nayyar though she admitted to the marriage, she did not want to go with the man. Nayyar pleaded the woman was under psychological pressure from her parents and was not speaking from her free will.
But the bench said, “She is an adult and must be allowed to exercise her free will. If she does not want to go with her husband, then it becomes a matrimonial case, which can be adjudicated by an appropriate court.”