HC sends woman for counselling, bars ‘liar’ husband meeting her

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday ordered the State to admit a 21-year-old girl to a counselling facility at Kilpauk Medical College and restrained her husband from visiting her for two weeks, the counselling period. Reason: The judges found the man who loved and married the woman without the knowledge of her parents had lied to the court about his educational credentials.

A division bench of Justice SS Sundar and Justice PB Balaji passed the orders on hearing a habeas corpus petition filed by the 41-year-old mother of the woman.

“When we wanted the third respondent/husband to produce his educational credentials to show that he completed BCom in Loyola College, he took time as he wanted to ‘search it in his mother’s bag’. The third respondent admitted then that his earlier statement was a lie,” the judges held.

The Additional Public Prosecutor submitted that according to information, the respondent man has not even completed Class 12.

Though the woman, a major, submitted that she wanted to go with her husband, the judges held they found it extremely difficult to consider that the detenu made her submissions independently.

“She has been influenced by the bundle of lies of the third respondent, which she has not even realised. She is also having some reservations mentally,” the bench wrote.

Advocate Thanga Vadhana Balakrishnan, counsel for the petitioner, submitted her client’s daughter was in a wavering mind since her school days.

It was also submitted that the woman eloped with the respondent man and married him as per Hindu and Christian customs.

Recording the submissions, the judges asked the Director of the Child Welfare Committee to arrange counselling for the woman for three weeks and allowed her mother to visit the woman. Meanwhile, the bench restrained the man who married her from visiting the woman.