‘Include founders, matrimonial sites as respondents’

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday directed that private matrimonial websites and their founders be impleaded as respondents to a PIL filed by an NGO which sought directions to control and monitor such sites. A division bench of Justices M Sathayanarayanan and B Pugalendi gave the direction on a public interest litigation petition filed by the managing trustee of a Tiruchy-based NGO Parents Trust. The NGO submitted that such matrimonial sites were being misused and there was a need to control and monitor them.

It sought directions to frame suitable guidelines to include their verification and identification. The NGO quoted an incident in Tiruchirapalli, where a man had allegedly cheated a widow, who was a medical practitioner and the mother of a girl, after promising to marry her.

the woman had uploaded her profile on a matrimonial site. The man, who was already married, had posted matrimonial ads on different websites without his photograph or mentioning his history, the NGO said.