The court's ruling on live-in partners, however, leaves the debate on the duration of the relationship open.
The Supreme Court’s judgment on eligibility for maintenance in a broken live-in alliance differentiates between a ‘keep’ and a free will live-in partner. Only a married man can maintain a ‘keep’; a similar alliance in case of an unmarried, legally eligible person is a ‘live-in’ arrangement, it said.
A ‘keep’ doesn’t have any legal status to claim maintenance, said Meenakshi Lekhi, noted lawyer and an expert in the field of matrimonial and inheritance laws. A live-in partnership doesn’t carry any fringes with it; it’s without encumbrances, she added.
There are cases where people don’t want to carry the legal obligations of marriage. They prefer the live-in setup. In certain cases, unmarried incumbents prefer to give it a try before finally getting married. It’s like a ‘probation’ period, if it clicks they will marry or they part company, she said.
On the issue of palimony or alimony, Lekhi said the purpose of the live-in tie-up is to keep away from marriage laws. If a partner is liable to pay palimony or alimony, he can marry the spouse concerned. “Nobody has prevented him or her,’’ she said.
Whether the relationship is for sex or for emotional help or other reasons are issues that could be decided after weighing the evidence brought up by the aggrieved partner.
The SC has, however, left the crucial issue “for a long time” open to further legal debate. No time limit has been specified and it’s like “reasonable time”, a term that continues to look for fixed tenure.
Lekhi strongly differed with the court’s ruling that an aggrieved live-in partner can be granted alimony under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005. This isn’t possible for a ‘‘live-in partner’’ as s/he is not a member of her partner’s family, she added. She said it can’t be argued that the live-in arrangement has been misused by men alone.
Chief justice SH Kapadia may soon set up a ‘larger’ bench to decide, among other things, whether a broad and expansive interpretation should be given to the term ‘wife’ to include even those cases where a man and woman have been living together as husband and wife for a “reasonably long period of time’’.
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