Court notice to woman’s father on habeas corpus plea

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has issued notices to the father of a married woman and the Station House Officer of the Mayapuri police station in South-West Delhi on a habeas corpus petition by the woman’s husband seeking a direction to the police to produce his wife before the Court.

Issuing the notices, the Court asked the respondents to be present in person before it on Monday, the next date of hearing, to reply to the allegations of the petitioner.

The petitioner, Mohammed Usman of Nasirpur, alleged that his father-in-law was keeping his wife in wrongful confinement and not allowing her to meet him.

The petitioner moved the Court when his wife managed to put across to him a message that her father had fixed her marriage with another person this coming Tuesday.

The couple had eloped in June last year and later got married. However, when the woman’s father came to know about the elopement he lodged a case of kidnapping against the petitioner with the local police.

The police later arrested the petitioner and recovered the woman. However, a lower court set the petitioner free when the woman in her statement submitted before the Metropolitan Magistrate that she had gone with him of her own will. Later they started living together as a couple. One day the father of the woman came over to her and persuaded her to come along with him to his home saying that he had no objection to her getting married with the petitioner. The petitioner also urged the Court to order registration of a case against his wife’s father for keeping her in wrongful confinement.