The Allahabad High Court recently declined to grant protection to a woman and a man who said they were living together by choice, holding that such protection could not be given when the woman’s marriage with her husband was still legally valid.

The court said extending protection in these circumstances would, in effect, protect an act that could amount to a criminal offence under Indian law.

“No law-abiding citizen who is already married under the Hindu Marriage Act can seek protection of this court for illicit relationship, which is not within the purview of social fabric of this country," the bench of Justice Vivek Kumar Singh said.

The court stressed that if a woman has any differences with her husband, she has to first get separated from her spouse as per the law applicable to the

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