Law, by its very nature, has an evolving character. The fundamental test of a good law is not merely how faithfully it preserves the social arrangements of the past, but how intelligently it responds to the changing realities of society without compromising the constitutional values on which it rests.
That tension between social change and legal tradition lies at the heart of the Supreme Court’s latest judgment on live-in relationships.
In Dr Lokesh BH & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Anr, the apex court has held that Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code, 1860, can, in appropriate circumstances, apply to a live-in relationship where the relationship qualifies as one “in the nature of marriage” and the intention to marry forms an intrinsic part of that relationship. A bench, comprising Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh, refused to quash the criminal proceedings against the accused, allowing the prosecution to proceed.
The judgment is significant because the argument before the Court was, at its core, a familiar one: Section 498A speaks of cruelty by a “husband” or his relatives against a woman. If there is no legally valid marriage, can the man in a live-in relationship be prosecuted under the provision at all?
The Court’s answer moves beyond the formal label attached to the relationship. It recognised that excluding women in live-in relationships that are, in substance, relationships in the nature of marriage from the protection of Section 498A could amount to discriminatory treatment.
That is the point at which an apparently technical question of statutory interpretation becomes a constitutional question of equality.
The distinction between a legally married woman and a woman living in a relationship that substantially bears the characteristics of marriage cannot, insofar as protection against domestic cruelty is concerned, necessarily be sustained merely because one relationship carries a marriage certificate and the other does not.
The Court is, therefore, not simply interpreting the word “husband”. It is asking whether the protective purpose of the law can be defeated by a formal distinction when the underlying social reality may be substantially the same.
UNDERSTANDING THE JUDGMENT
The ruling must, however, be understood with its qualifications.
The Supreme Court has not said that every live-in relationship is equivalent to marriage. Nor has it held that every woman in a live-in relationship can automatically invoke Section 498A.
The Court has confined its reasoning to relationships that qualify as being “in the nature of marriage”, involving consenting adults and circumstances in which the intention to marry forms an intrinsic part of the relationship. It has also made clear that this expanded interpretation is confined to the statutory provision under consideration and does not automatically govern every other law in which the status of “husband” or “wife” carries consequences.
That qualification is crucial.
Indian law has never treated every form of cohabitation as marriage. A casual relationship, a short-term association or a relationship without the characteristics of marriage does not become a marriage-like relationship simply because two people live together.
The apex court is, therefore, not doing away with the distinction between marriage and live-in relationships. It is asking a narrower—and more consequential—question: When a relationship has acquired the essential character of marriage, can the absence of a formal marriage certificate become a reason to deny a woman protection against domestic cruelty?
The Supreme Court’s answer is no.
THE CASE BEFORE THE COURT
The case arose from criminal proceedings in Karnataka. The complainant alleged, among other things, that she had lived with Dr Lokesh BH as his wife, that facts concerning his earlier marriage had been suppressed and that she had been subjected to cruelty and dowry-related harassment.
Dr Lokesh approached the Karnataka High Court seeking quashing of the proceedings. His principal argument was that Section 498A could not be invoked because there was no legally valid marriage between the parties.
The Karnataka High Court refused to quash the proceedings. The matter then reached the Supreme Court, where the larger question was whether the expression “husband” in Section 498A could apply in circumstances where the parties were not formally married, but were in a relationship in the nature of marriage.
The Supreme Court refused to permit the prosecution to be defeated at the threshold merely because there was no formal marriage. It held that the trial could proceed in accordance with law.
The significance is, therefore, not that the Court has found the accused guilty. It has not. The Court has held only that the absence of a formal marriage, by itself, is not sufficient to shut the door on a Section 498A prosecution where the relationship falls within the category identified by the judgment.
The allegations of cruelty must still be tested at trial.
WHY ARTICLE 14 BECOMES CENTRAL
The most important constitutional dimension of the judgment is not merely the interpretation of the word “husband”. It is the Court’s reliance on Article 14.
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the laws. It does not require every person to be treated identically in every circumstance. It does, however, prevent the State from making arbitrary or unjustified distinctions between similarly situated persons.
That principle becomes particularly relevant in the context of Section 498A. The object of the provision is to protect women from cruelty within the domestic sphere. If a woman in a legally recognised marriage can invoke that protection, but a woman in a relationship which is, in substance, a marriage-like domestic relationship is denied the same protection solely because the relationship was never formally solemnised, the question inevitably arises whether that distinction bears a rational relationship to the protective purpose of the law.
The Supreme Court has answered that question in the negative.
Harassment and cruelty do not begin only after a marriage certificate has been issued. They can arise within domestic relationships irrespective of their formal legal status.
To insist that the protective law can operate only after a formal marriage has been solemnised would risk reducing a complex social reality to a single piece of documentation.
That is precisely where Article 14 gives the judgment its constitutional force.
INDIVIDUAL CHOICE AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY
The judgment also fits into a much larger constitutional development concerning individual choice.
In KS Puttaswamy vs Union of India, the Supreme Court recognised privacy as a constitutionally protected right and located within that right the individual’s autonomy, dignity and ability to make intimate personal choices.
In Shafin Jahan vs Asokan KM, the Court similarly reinforced the principle that the choice of one’s life partner is an intensely personal decision protected by individual liberty.
Earlier, in Lata Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh, the Court had affirmed the right of an adult woman to choose whom she wished to marry and live with. In S Khushboo vs Kanniammal, it made another important distinction: social disapproval cannot automatically be converted into criminality.
The significance of these decisions in the present context is profound.
If the Constitution recognises that adults possess the autonomy to decide whom they wish to live with and how they wish to structure their intimate lives, then the legal system cannot selectively deny protection to an individual merely because that personal choice does not conform to the traditional institution of marriage.
The law may continue to distinguish between marriage and live-in relationships for many purposes. But the freedom to choose a relationship cannot mean the freedom to be left without protection against abuse within that relationship.
That is where Article 14 and individual autonomy intersect.
A PROGRESSIVE JUDGMENT, BUT A CAREFULLY LIMITED ONE
There is another reason the Lokesh judgment deserves attention. The Supreme Court has not simply expanded criminal liability without safeguards.
It has directed that the safeguards laid down in Arnesh Kumar vs State of Bihar regarding arrest must be strictly followed. The Court has also emphasised the importance of procedural safeguards before arrest in such cases.
This is significant because criminal law carries consequences of its own.
The Court has, therefore, attempted to strike a balance: a woman should not lose the protection of Section 498A merely because she was not formally married, but the expanded application of the criminal provision cannot become a licence for automatic arrest. The judgment thus seeks to protect two constitutional principles simultaneously—equality for the woman and procedural fairness for the accused.
That balance will be particularly important in the cases that follow.
THE LEGAL JOURNEY TO LOKESH
The significance of the Lokesh judgment becomes clearer when placed against the history of judicial decisions concerning live-in relationships.
The present judgment is not the beginning of the story. It is, in many ways, the latest point in a legal evolution that has taken place over several decades.
The courts first had to confront a more basic question: is living together outside marriage itself unlawful?
In Lata Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh (2006), the Supreme Court recognised the freedom of a major woman to choose whom she wished to marry and to live with a person of her choice. The Court’s intervention was a clear affirmation that an adult’s choice of partner cannot, merely because it conflicts with social expectations, become a basis for criminal prosecution.
The principle was reiterated in S Khushboo vs Kanniammal (2010). The Supreme Court held that there was no law prohibiting two consenting adults from voluntarily engaging in a sexual relationship outside marriage and that such conduct, by itself, did not constitute an offence. The importance of Khushboo was that it separated morality from criminality.
Society may approve or disapprove of a particular relationship. Criminal law, however, cannot be invoked merely because a section of society regards that relationship as immoral.
That was an important first step.
FROM THE RIGHT TO LIVE TOGETHER TO THE PRESUMPTION OF MARRIAGE
The law had, however, been dealing with relationships outside formal marriage even earlier.
In Badri Prasad vs Dy Director of Consolidation (1978), the Supreme Court considered a couple who had lived together for decades as husband and wife. The Court recognised a strong presumption in favour of marriage arising from prolonged cohabitation, while making it clear that such a presumption was rebuttable.
The principle was subsequently developed in other cases concerning long cohabitation.
In Tulsa vs Durghatiya (2008), the Court examined the evidentiary consequences of long cohabitation and the presumptions that could arise from the ordinary course of human conduct.
These judgments were important because they demonstrated that the law had already begun looking beyond formal documentation and towards the lived reality of a relationship.
WHEN DOES A LIVE-IN RELATIONSHIP BECOME A RELATIONSHIP IN THE NATURE OF MARRIAGE?
The modern legal framework became clearer with the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, which expressly recognised relationships “in the nature of marriage”.
The Supreme Court subsequently explained the contours of this expression in D Velusamy vs D Patchaiammal (2010). The Court made one thing clear: not every live-in relationship qualifies. Among the relevant considerations were whether the parties held themselves out to society as spouses, whether they were legally capable of entering into marriage, whether they had voluntarily cohabited and represented themselves as spouses for a significant period, and the overall nature and duration of the relationship.
The importance of Velusamy was, therefore, in creating a legal distinction between an ordinary live-in relationship and one which had assumed the essential characteristics of marriage. That distinction has now become central to Lokesh.
MAINTENANCE AND ECONOMIC PROTECTION
The same evolution can be seen in the law of maintenance.
In Chanmuniya vs Virendra Kumar Singh Kushwaha (2010), the Supreme Court adopted a purposive approach towards maintenance law in circumstances where parties had lived together as husband and wife and considered whether the absence of a formally established marriage should defeat the protective purpose of the law.
The question was subsequently considered in other cases concerning women in marriage-like relationships and their claims to economic protection.
Again, the law was moving gradually away from a single formal question—was there a marriage?—towards a more substantive inquiry into how the parties actually lived and what vulnerability the relationship created.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: PROTECTION BEYOND MARRIAGE
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act represented another important stage in this evolution.
In Lalita Toppo vs State of Jharkhand (2018), the Supreme Court held that even where a woman in a live-in relationship could not claim maintenance as a legally wedded wife under Section 125 CrPC, she could have an efficacious remedy under the Domestic Violence Act.
This was an important legal distinction. The absence of a formal marriage did not mean the absence of legal protection.
The Court recognised that a woman could be economically and domestically vulnerable within a relationship even where the technical status of “wife” was unavailable to her.
THE LIMITS OF JUDICIAL RECOGNITION
The courts, however, have never suggested that every live-in relationship should automatically be treated as marriage.
In Indra Sarma vs VKV Sarma (2013), the Supreme Court acknowledged that long-term live-in relationships could create dependency and vulnerability, particularly for women and children, and recognised the need for legal protection.
At the same time, it cautioned that not every live-in relationship could be treated as a relationship in the nature of marriage.
That balance remains important in understanding Lokesh.
The Supreme Court has not substituted live-in relationships for marriage. It has instead developed specific legal protections for specific circumstances.
FROM RECOGNITION TO ACCOUNTABILITY
This is what makes the present judgment different. Earlier judgments progressively answered questions such as:
Can adults live together?
Can long cohabitation raise a presumption of marriage?
Can a marriage-like live-in relationship attract protection under the Domestic Violence Act?
Can a woman in such a relationship, in appropriate circumstances, seek maintenance?
The courts progressively recognised such claims depending upon the nature of the relationship and the applicable law.
But Lokesh asks a different question:
Can the man in such a marriage-like relationship be prosecuted for cruelty under Section 498A even though there is no formal marriage?
The Supreme Court has now answered yes, subject to the conditions and safeguards it has laid down. That is the real shift.
The jurisprudence has moved from recognising the existence of live-in relationships to recognising the responsibilities that may arise from them.
THE LARGER LESSON: LAW MUST EVOLVE WITH SOCIETY
The story of live-in relationships in India, therefore, tells us something larger about the character of law itself. Social change rarely arrives with a notification. People change the way they live first. Law catches up later.
Courts are then confronted with relationships, families and social arrangements that may not have been contemplated in the same form when the original statute was enacted.
The response cannot always be to say that because the legislature wrote a provision in the language of an earlier social structure, the law must remain frozen in that structure forever. At the same time, judicial evolution must remain within constitutional and statutory boundaries. That is precisely what makes the Lokesh judgment important.
The Supreme Court has not declared that marriage and live-in relationships are identical. It has not granted every right of marriage to every person who lives with another. It has limited its interpretation to the statutory provision before it, confined the protection to relationships in the nature of marriage meeting the conditions identified by the Court, and insisted upon safeguards against arbitrary arrest.
But it has drawn a constitutional line at one particular point: A woman cannot be denied protection against domestic cruelty merely because the relationship in which that cruelty occurs lacks the formal label of marriage, when the relationship otherwise falls within the nature of marriage contemplated by law.
That is where Article 14 gives the judgment its constitutional force.
The deeper message is not that marriage has become irrelevant. It is that formal status cannot always be allowed to eclipse substantive reality.
And in that sense, Lokesh is another chapter in the continuing evolution of Indian law—from a system that once asked simply whether a marriage existed to one increasingly willing to ask what kind of relationship actually existed, what vulnerabilities it created and what constitutional protection the people within it were entitled to receive.
—The writer is a New Delhi-based journalist, lawyer and trained mediator
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