Can a married man be in a live in relationship?

895 votes

see if you want to go for live in Relationship it's better to take divorce first then only go for live in...
secondly live in Relationship is something in which you can can live as couple without being actually married

Advocate Shruti Bhardwaj LawRato

929 votes

YES, THERE IS NO LAW WHICH CAN STOP HIM AS LONG AS THE LADY HE CHOOSES TO LIVE WITH IN LIVE IN IS EITHER UNMARRIED OR DIVORCED, THOUGH THE REPERCUSSION CAN BE SEEN IN DIVORCE PROCEEDINGS, MAINTENANCE CASE AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASES (CIVIL REMEDY NOT CRIMINAL).

Advocate Piyush Chhabra LawRato

859 votes

“If two people, man and woman, want to live together, who can oppose them? What is the offence they commit here? This happens because of the cultural exchange between people,” a special three-judge bench of chief justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan, justices Deepak Verma and B.S. Chauhan observed. that if a man and a woman in love decide to live together as a couple, it is well within their right to life and by no means can be deemed a “criminal offence”.
The Delhi High Court in its decision on 10 August 2010, in Alok Kumar v. State & Anr[6] while dealing with the validity of live in relationship held that "‘Live-in relationship’ is a walk-in and walk-out relationship. There are no strings attached to this relationship, neither this relationship creates any legal bond between the parties. It is a contract of living together which is renewed every day by the parties and can be terminated by either of the parties without consent of the other party and one party can walk out at will at any time."(Para 6)

The Supreme Court in the case of D. Velusamy v.D. Patchaiammal [7] held that, a ‘relationship in the nature of marriage’ under the 2005 Act must also fulfill the following criteria:

(a) The couple must hold themselves out to society as being akin to spouses.
(b) They must be of legal age to marry.
(c) They must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried.
(d) They must have voluntarily cohabited and held themselves out to the world as being akin to spouses for a significant period of time, and in addition the parties must have lived together in a ‘shared household’ as defined in Section 2(s) of the Act. Merely spending weekends together or a one-night stand would not make it a ‘domestic relationship’. It also held that if a man has a ‘keep’ whom he maintains financially and uses mainly for sexual purpose and/or as a servant it would not, in our opinion, be a relationship in the nature of marriage’.

Advocate Amit Gaurav LawRato

291 votes

The Court held that the right to live, enshrined in Article 21 of India's Constitution, includes a relationship between two adults living together. The Court also held that live-in relations are permissible, and that two adults living together in any event cannot be considered unlawful or illegal.

Advocate Chikirsha Mohanty LawRato