Missing Husband Turns Up in Court, Admits Eloping With Wife's Cousin: MP High Court

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Gwalior bench has dismissed a habeas corpus petition filed by a woman who alleged her husband had gone missing, after the "corpus" himself walked into court and narrated a months-long saga of elopement with his wife's cousin across several cities, and a deliberate attempt to dodge police.

A division bench of Justice G.S. Ahluwalia and Justice Anuradha Shukla heard the plea filed by Petitioner wife, who claimed her husband had disappeared. During the proceedings, police told the court that footage recorded on August 14 showed the missing man sitting with his father and grandfather, while his grandfather could be heard abusing the informer who had tipped off police about his location.

When the man finally appeared before the court, he admitted to being present in that video and gave the bench a detailed account of his movements. He told the court he had taken away his wife's cousin, his "Sali," and travelled with her to Bhopal and then Rajkot, where the couple took a separate room without informing the petitioner or his father, who were already staying in Rajkot. He further admitted that mobile phones were "deliberately switched off with an intention to mislead the police so that their location may not be traced," before the two travelled on to Panvel and Goa and eventually returned to Bhopal.

Since a missing person's report over the girl was already under inquiry, the two were brought back to Bhind, where she was lodged at a One Stop Centre. After her statement was recorded before the SDM, the man went to Jaipur, took a rented room in Mansarovar without submitting identity documents to the landlord, and began working as a delivery boy while the girl took up stitching work. He told the court he had developed a physical relationship with her but had not married her.

Counsel for the petitioner, Advocate Abhinav Bhargav, disputed this, submitting that the man had, in fact, already married the girl. The bench then weighed whether proving bigamy required actual performance of Saptapadi rituals, and answered in the negative, relying on the Supreme Court's ruling in K. Neelaveni vs. State, which held that a court need not first be satisfied that a second marriage was actually solemnised before taking cognizance of bigamy.

The bench also clarified a procedural point, noting that even a chargesheet filed for a non-cognizable offence can be treated as a complaint under Section 2(d) of the CrPC/Section 2(h) of the BNSS, with the investigating officer treated as complainant, and that only the court's power to take cognizance, not the police's power to register an FIR, is restricted in such cases.

Turning to maintenance, the court noted that the man had admitted the child born to him and the petitioner was his own, and could not evade responsibility by citing a modest income of Rs. 13,000 a month. Observing that his family included an uncle based in London, a Fufa serving as an Army Major, and another uncle working as a software engineer in Bangalore, the bench held, citing Rajnesh vs. Neha, that "an able-bodied person is also required to maintain his child" and that he "cannot run away from his liability." The court directed him to deposit Rs. 6,000 every month into an account to be opened by the petitioner in the child's name, warning that any default "will be treated as a contempt of Court."

The bench dismissed the petition, granting the petitioner liberty to pursue matrimonial remedies, including maintenance under civil law, and leaving police free to continue or close the investigation. The man was directed to furnish a personal bond of Rs. 1,00,000 with a surety of the same amount before being allowed to leave for a place of his choice. Government Advocate C.P. Singh appeared for the State, while Advocate Ajit Singh Bhadoria represented respondent No. 7 grandfather of corpus.

Case Title: Radha Prajapati vs. The State of Madhya Pradesh and others

Date of Order: August 18, 2026

Bench: Justice G.S. Ahluwalia and Justice Anuradha Shukla

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