MUMBAI: Bombay high court on Wednesday dismissed an appeal filed by Anita Advani to recognise her long-term relationship with the late actor Rajesh Khanna as marriage.Justice Sharmila Deshmukh ruled that by Advani’s pleadings, it “is evident that the substantive relief sought is of being declared as widow of (Khanna), which is a necessary sequitur of the declaration...”, but the relationship doesn’t satisfy the tests formulated by Supreme Court over recognition of a live-in relation as a marriage.Khanna was not divorced from his estranged actor-wife Dimple Khanna, the court was informed.Following Rajesh Khanna’s demise in 2012, Advani and members of his family have been locked in a legal battle. Advani filed a suit in 2015 before the Dindoshi city civil court against Dimple and others, including her daughter Twinkle and son-in-law Rajiv Bhatia (actor Akshay Kumar), to have her long-term relationship with the actor to be akin to a marriage. When her plea was rejected in 2017, she approached the HC in appeal. The HC said the trial court had rightly applied the test to hold that “no fruitful purpose would be served by going ahead” with a civil trial — which would require deposition of Khanna’s family members and others — and unnecessarily protract the proceedings. “There has to be cumulative satisfaction of the test … which lays down the criteria that the parties must be otherwise qualified to enter into a legal marriage, including being unmarried, is clearly not satisfied in the present case,” the HC said, after hearing advocates Preeti Singh for Advani and Pooja Kane for the Khanna family.The declaration “seeks equivalence with marriage and marital relationship and must therefore also satisfy the essential tests for valid marriage although not formally married,” the HC elaborated.Before the Dindoshi court, Twinkle had sought dismissal of Advani’s suit on the ground that the suit is barred by law, broadly since the marriage between her parents — Rajesh Khanna and Dimple — was not dissolved and under the Hindu Marriage Act, there can be no marriage if one of the party had a spouse living and hence, there can be no declaration as sought by Advani of being the widow.The HC observed that in the absence of requirements of valid marriage as set out in the provisions of Hindu Marriage Act not being satisfied, the relationship between Advani and Khanna had the “character of live-in relationship”.The concept of a live-in relationship was legally recognised under the DV Act, which defined “domestic relationship” to mean a relationship between two persons who live or have, at any point of time, lived together in a shared household through a relationship in the nature of marriage.But the HC said declaration of the relationship being in nature of marriage would require applicability of the tests as laid down by the SC in the case of D Velusamy vs D Patchaiammal and added the satisfaction is lacking here. Even when a live-in relationship is monogamous, the tests set out by the SC must be satisfied, said the HC.Finding no merit in Advani’s appeal, the HC dismissed it.
