She wears a mangalsutra and bright-red sindoor on her forehead. But for all legal purposes, actor Sanjay Dutt and Maanyata are not a married couple and are simply “staying together”.
Sanjay & Maanyata tell court they are not married
MUMBAI: She wears a mangalsutra and bright-red sindoor on her forehead. But for all legal purposes, actor Sanjay Dutt and Maanyata are not a married couple and are simply “staying together”.
Faced with a bigamy complaint filed by Maanyata’s first husband Meraj-ur-Rehman Sheikh, the alleged Mr and Mrs Dutt on Monday filed an application in a city sessions court denying that they are married.
Admitting the revision application, additional sessions judge, SN Sardesai, on Monday stayed the Bandra magistrate court order. The case will now be heard on April 23.
Countering Sheikh’s allegations that Maanyata had married Dutt without dissolving her first marriage, Dutt has now admitted in court that Maanyata is simply “staying with him” in his Pali Hill residence in Bandra (west).
Sheikh, who is currently lodged in the Arthur Road jail for allegedly sending obscene sms-es to Bollywood actresses, had moved the Bandra magistrate’s court in February challenging Maanyata’s marriage to Dutt. Observing that a “prime facie case was made out” against Dutt and Maanyata, the magistrate summoned the Dutt couple to appear in court on April 15. The maximum punishment for bigamy if imprisonment up to seven years.
Dutt and Maanyata have challenged the legality of the magistrate’s order stating that their alleged marriage at Goa “is a nullity” and “as such there is no material to show that they are validly married in the eyes of the law”.
The application adds that “For the prosecution to prove a bigamous marriage, it is necessary that the alleged second marriage be valid. Therefore in the absence of any such evidence, there is not even a prima facie case of bigamy disclosed.”
The application contends that the magistrate has “no jurisdiction” to decide on the validity of the divorce which is an “exclusive domain of civil courts”.
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