The Case That Changes How We Define Marriage in Law
On August 3, 2026, the Supreme Court delivered a judgment that rewrites who counts as a "husband" under Indian criminal law. In Dr. Lokesh B.H. v. State of Karnataka (SLP(Crl) No. 2240-2241/2026), the Court held that a man in a live-in relationship can now be prosecuted under Section 498A of the Indian Penal Code—the provision that criminalizes cruelty to wives. This is not a small technical shift. It is a decision about whose suffering the law recognizes.
The case began with two people who lived together as husband and wife starting in 2010. By 2016, the relationship fractured. The woman filed complaints alleging cruelty. The man argued he could not be prosecuted because they were never formally married. The Karnataka High Court disagreed. Now the Supreme Court has agreed with the High Court, but with reasoning that goes much deeper.
What Actually Happened Between These Two People
According to the case records, the appellant and the woman (Smt. Theertha) performed a Hindu marriage ceremony on October 17, 2010. They lived together in Bengaluru. The man later claimed the marriage was invalid because he had an earlier, undisclosed first marriage. The woman filed two separate criminal complaints—Crime No. 383 of 2016 and Crime No. 450 of 2016—alleging cruelty and harassment.
Two separate courts took up these cases. One charged him under Section 498A IPC (cruelty to wife). The second filed charges under Section 498A plus Sections 504, 506, 307, and 494 IPC, along with the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. The man fought back, asking courts to quash these proceedings. He said if the marriage was void, Section 498A simply did not apply to him. His legal team leaned on strict interpretation of penal law: the statute says "husband." No valid marriage means no husband. Case closed.
But the Karnataka High Court rejected this argument in November 2025, and now the Supreme Court has upheld that rejection with even broader reasoning.
The Court's Central Finding: Live-In Relationships Count
Justice Sanjay Karol, writing for the bench, held that the word "husband" in Section 498A must be read expansively, not narrowly. The Court stated: a woman does not lose legal protection simply because the man lied about his marital status. If a man presents himself to a woman as her husband, they live together as spouses, perform domestic duties as a married couple—then that man cannot later escape criminal liability by claiming no valid marriage ever existed.
"Where a man induces a woman to believe that she is lawfully married to him, and thereafter subjects her to cruelty, such a man cannot be permitted to evade criminal responsibility on the plea that no valid marriage existed in law."
The Court's reasoning acknowledges something crucial: a woman who lives with a man as his wife, who has sex with him, who performs household labor, who is presented to the world as his spouse—that woman is in a relationship "having all the trappings of a marital union." The law should protect her from cruelty in that relationship, whether or not the man obtained a marriage license.
Why This Matters to Women in Live-In Relationships
India has no unified legal recognition of live-in relationships. A couple cohabiting for decades has no inheritance rights, no succession rights, no automatic guardianship of children. Yet they occupy a legal twilight zone. Until this ruling, they also occupied a protection gap in criminal law.
Before August 2026, if a woman in a live-in relationship complained of violence or harassment to police, the answer was often: "Show us a marriage certificate." Without one, Section 498A—the sharpest criminal tool against domestic cruelty—was unavailable. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, offered some recourse, but that law provides civil remedies (protection orders, maintenance). A woman could get a court order telling her abuser to stay away. She could not get him arrested and jailed.
The appellant's lawyers argued that women in live-in relationships had an alternative: they could use the Domestic Violence Act instead. Why expand Section 498A? The Court's answer is blunt. Criminal prosecution and civil protection serve different purposes. One is prevention and punishment. The other is restraint and compensation. A woman should not have to choose between the two based on whether she has a marriage certificate.
The Tension Between Strict Law and Real Life
The case presents a genuine conflict between two ways of reading criminal statutes. One approach—strict interpretation—says penal laws exist to punish wrongdoing narrowly defined. If Parliament wrote "husband," courts should not read in "man living with a woman as husband." Expand the scope of criminal law, and innocent men face prosecution for conduct they thought was legal.
The other approach—purposive interpretation—asks: what harm was Parliament trying to prevent? Section 498A exists because marriage creates dependency. A wife leaves her family, her home, her career. She becomes vulnerable. The law protects her from the man who exploited that dependency. A woman in a live-in relationship has the same vulnerability, the same dependence. Should the law protect her less because she lacked a piece of paper?
The Supreme Court chose purposive interpretation. This reflects a shift in Indian family law toward substance over form. Real relationships matter more than ceremonial ones.
What the Court Actually Held
Justice Karol's judgment holds that the term "husband" in Section 498A IPC extends to: (1) a man in a void or voidable marriage; and (2) a man in a live-in relationship that bears the attributes of marriage, so long as cruelty—as legally defined—is proven. The Court emphasizes that the parties must have lived together, cohabited, represented themselves as spouses, and shared domestic and social obligations. A fleeting affair does not trigger Section 498A protection. A relationship of marital character does.
This is not a blanket decriminalization of all male conduct toward cohabiting women. The woman must still prove cruelty. Cruelty, as defined in Section 498A, means willful conduct causing injury or danger to the woman's life, limb, health, mind, or reputation. Courts will still examine whether the alleged conduct meets this threshold.
What Happens Next
The case returns to the trial courts. The charges against Dr. Lokesh B.H. will proceed under Section 498A IPC. He will have a chance to defend himself, to contest the allegations, to argue that his conduct was not cruel. But he cannot simply walk away on the ground that no valid marriage existed.
This judgment will ripple through family courts nationwide. Women filing complaints in police stations will face less resistance based on the absence of a marriage certificate. Police will have clearer authority to register cases under Section 498A in live-in situations. But it will also invite scrutiny: How do courts determine when a live-in relationship has "marital character"? What evidence proves cohabitation and representation as spouses?
The ruling affirms something many women have long known: the law's recognition of your suffering should not depend on ceremonies or documents. It should depend on the reality of your life.