The Nainital High Court heard a petition challenging the mandatory registration of live-in relationships under Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code (UCC). The court questioned the privacy concerns raised in the petition, stating that if couples are living together openly without marriage, the issue of privacy violation does not arise.
A division bench of Chief Justice G. Narender and Justice Alok Mehra remarked that the state government has not prohibited live-in relationships but only mandated their registration. The court asked, “When neighbors, society, and the world know about a live-in relationship, how does it violate privacy?”
Petitioner Jai Tripathi, a resident of Dehradun, argued through his lawyer that mandatory registration makes live-in relationships public, thereby institutionalizing gossip. He cited the 2017 Supreme Court ruling on privacy and claimed that the UCC provision infringes on personal liberty.
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Additionally, the petitioner referred to a recent case in Almora, where a man was allegedly killed due to a live-in relationship, stating that such regulations could lead to violence.
The High Court clubbed this petition with other pending cases on the UCC’s legal validity and scheduled the next hearing for April 1.
