The efforts of a 24-year-old youth from a Scheduled Caste community to reunite with his estranged caste Hindu wife ended in vain after his wife told the Madras High Court Bench here that she wanted to live with her parents.
R. Raghu, a resident of Shenoy Nagar in Madurai, filed a habeas corpus petition, claiming that he married S. Gowthami, a 24-year-old caste Hindu woman from Salem, with whom he was in love and got married on February 3, 2012. The marriage was registered before the sub-registrar in Royapuram, he said.
According to Mr Raghu’s counsel A. Rajini, the couple concealed their marriage from their families so that Ms Gowthami could complete her engineering degree. “The family of Ms Gowthami made arrangements to marry her off to somebody else against her wishes. But she escaped from them and surrendered before the Superintendent of Police in Salem, along with Mr Raghu. Her family assaulted Mr Raghu’s family and verbally abused them by referring to their caste after he produced his marriage registration certificate,” contended Ms. Rajini.
The petitioner claimed that Ms. Gowthami was taken by force by her family to her house on March 21 this year. Thereafter, he filed the habeas corpus petition seeking direction to Ms. Gowthami’s family to produce her at the court. Based on a court directive, the police produced Ms. Gowthami at the court. She told the judges that she was married to the petitioner. However, she did not want to live with him any more because she did not like his habits. She had completed ME and had already got a job as faculty in an engineering college, she said and added that she was planning to officially secure a divorce from Mr Raghu.
Recording her statements, a Division Bench comprising Justices S. Rajeswaran and T. Mathivanan permitted Ms. Gowthami to go with her parents.
