West Bengal: Lawyer saves marriage of clients by paying out of his own pocket

For those who believe in the saying, ‘The road to hell is lined with lawyers and drunkards’, public prosecutor for Birbhum district in West Bengal, Ranjit Gangopadhyay, is a dampener. He had out of his own pocket, booked an all expenses paid stay at a hotel for a couple who had moved court for divorce, to help them patch up.

Talking to DNA, Gangopadhyay said that the couple – Gautam Das of Suri in Birbhum had married Ahana Das of Nadia district in March 2016. “After a few days of their marriage, there was trouble between the two, which snowballed into a big tension, owing to the intervention of both of their family members. On October 20, 2017, Ahana returned to her father’s place and after few attempts of reconciliation, on January 8, 2018, she put in a complaint against Gautam and a case was started under sections 354 (sexual harassment), 498A (husband or a relative of husband of a woman subjecting her to cruelty) and 307 (attempt to murder),” Gangopadhyay said.

Gautam had applied for an anticipatory bail at the court of the district judge, saying that he did not want to carry on with her. On Tuesday, while the district judge was about to order a cancellation of his bail plea, Gangopadhyay said that he had known the two of them and thought that if they are allowed to stay away from their family members, they might come close to each other.

“The court asked Gautam to rent a house for three days. When he expressed his inability to do so, I said I would book a hotel room for them and accordingly had booked a suite for three days for the couple,” Gangopadhyay added. He said that he had visited them on Wednesday morning and they looked in a lot better shape and might take back their complaints on January 19.