'Hare-Brained Petition' : Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Seeking Registration Of Live-In Relationships

The Supreme Court on Monday expressed surprise at a PIL which was filed seeking mandatory registration of live-in relationships. 

The bench comprising CJI DY Chandrachud, Justice PS Narasimha, and Justice JB Pardiwala wondered if the petitioner was actually trying to prevent live-in relationships under the guise of fostering their security by seeking mandatory registration.

Right at the outset, CJI DY Chandrachud asked–

"What is this? People come with anything here? We'll start imposing costs on such cases. Registration with whom? The Central Government? What does the Central government has to do with people living in live in relationships? Are you trying to foster the care, the security of these people or trying to prevent them from getting into live in relationships?"

Calling the petition "just a hare brained petition", the court dismissed it. 

The petition was filed by Advocate Mamta Rani and prayed for a direction for the Central Government to formulate rules for registration of Live-in relationships.

The petition contended that–

"Time and again this Hon’ble Court has been the protector of the live-in partners and has passed numerous number of judgments which is having the effect of giving protection to the members of the live-in partnership be it the women, men or even the children born out of such relationship."

It submitted that since there are no rules and guidelines covering live-in partnerships, there has been a vast increase in the crimes by the live-in partners including major crimes like rape and murder. In this context, the petition refers to recent cases where women got allegedly killed by their live-in partners, including the Shraddha Walkar case.

According to the petitioner, the registration of live-in relationship would lead in accurate information being available to both the live-in partners about each other and also to the Government about each of them regarding their marital status, their criminal history and other relevant details.

The PIL not only sought for framing laws related to live-in relationships but also sought a direction to the Central Government to work on getting a data base for finding out the exact number of people involved in live-in relationship in our country. It argued that the same could only be achieved by making registration of live-in partnership mandatory.

As per the petition, the Central Government’s failure to register live-in partnerships was in violation of Article 19 and Article 21 of Constitution.

Case Title: Mamta Rani v. UoI WP(C) No. 315/2023 PIL

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