LAST MONTH, the Punjab and Haryana High Court denied a live-in-couple’s plea seeking police protection from an alleged danger and harassment from the woman’s family. While the Court observed that under Article 21 of the Constitution, every individual has a right to live with peace, dignity and honour, it contended that in India, with its deep cultural origins, a significant emphasis lies on morals and ethical reasoning.
In doing so, Justice Sandeep Moudgil, speaking for the Court, agreed to the shifting social dynamics – that live-in relationships (‘LIRs’) are increasingly being adopted by a section of Indian society as a ‘modern lifestyle’, but argued that it’s influenced by Western culture, which is vastly different from Indian culture, and that the LIR in question does not fulfil its legally recognised conditions. So, providing police protection in such circumstances, the Court added, could indirectly amount to judicial approval of an ‘illicit relationship’, and that such relationship can bring ‘bad name’ to family. This rationale, which involved extra-legal grounds, was given even though petitioners, who were currently living in LIR, claimed that they are major – being more than 18 years of age, unmarried, like and love each other, and wanted to get married.
On the other hand, earlier this year, the Punjab & Haryana Court itself, although through Justice Mandeep Pannu, in a similar plea filed by a live-in couple alleging threat from their family members, directed the police to examine the threat perception faced by them and take necessary steps to ensure their safety. It held that the right to life and personal liberty cannot be denied to consenting adults merely because they are in a LIR as such rights stand at the highest pedestal.
While the Court observed that every individual has a right to live with peace, dignity and honour, it contended that in India, with its deep cultural origins, a significant emphasis lies on morals and ethical reasoning.
The Delhi High Court went further in this regard, and in April this year, through Justice Saurabh Banerjee, explicitly stated that even the marital status of a live-in couple is irrelevant to the protection of their fundamental rights. It ruled that the right to life and protection cannot be denied to consenting adults merely because they are married to other partners, thereby granting police protection to a couple in a LIR facing threats from family members. Thus, the Delhi High Court reinforced that constitutional safeguards cannot be curtailed by social disapproval or familial pressure.
Such a varying judicial approach brings to light the complexities around the issue of moral and legal policing, as well as unpredictability around judicial and cultural understanding of LIR and raises several questions. Can one choose as an adult to live the way they want, without any State or family intervention, if not harming anyone else? Can one approach the State (specifically, the police) for protection if while being in a LIR they are threatened by family or community members? The socio-legal discourse surrounding LIR and their governance by the State has seen a sudden but conflicting shift in India and the issue of Uniform Civil Code (‘UCC’) is again in the limelight. The National Commission for Women (‘NCW’) recently asked for the enactment of a “comprehensive legislation” to codify Muslim personal law relating to marriage, divorce, maintenance, custody, inheritance, and LIR. It is based on a report, which recommends inter alia prohibition of child marriage and regulation of divorce practices to ensure empowerment of, and fairness, due process, and equal access to remedies for, Muslim women. It was drafted after an extensive national-level consultation aimed at strengthening their legal, social, and constitutional rights in alignment with the principles of gender justice.
LIR data and a shift towards Uniform Civil Code(s)
According to the 2011 Census, the most recent relationship data, over 1.5 million Indian households reported a live-in arrangement, and the real number would almost certainly be far higher. More recent data notes that 1 in 2 Indians prefer living in before they get married to understand their partner better. Following the Uniform Civil Code, Uttarakhand, 2024 (‘UCCU’), both Gujarat and Assam implemented their own UCC; and now Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have also initiated the process to implement the UCC.
While these legal developments are a significant step in the realisation of the constitutional goal enshrined under Article 44 as a Directive Principle of State Policy, at the outset, there are three genres from which one can examine these laws. One is based on the ‘Rule of Law’ framework; the other examines the reforms through the lens of cultural rights; and the third examines them from the perspective of individual rights derived from the Indian Constitution. As much of the public discussion has focused on marriage, succession, and general family law, the article focuses on one of the most significant, yet under-examined aspects of these reforms, also considered an extension at the intersection of criminal law and family law, i.e., the regulation of LIRs.
The UCCU (from sections 384 to 395), as well as the UCC for Assam and Gujarat enacted in 2026, in their Part III, have introduced a mandatory registration framework for LIR and prescribes legal consequences for non-compliance. Similar proposals and legislative initiatives concerning the regulation of LIR have also emerged in Assam and Gujarat, reflecting a ‘lawfare’ – a broader trend towards greater State regulation of intimate relationships outside marriage. These laws depart from the jurisprudential insights of the Indian Supreme Court, which has consistently recognised adults’ autonomy to choose their partners and pursue their intimate lives free from unnecessary state interference.
Mandatory registration of LIR is irreconcilable with the principles enshrined in the Indian Constitution is the central argument of this piece. Making adults to disclose their status to the government mandatory or face criminal punishment are regulations prima facie inconsistent with the guarantees of privacy, autonomy, and equality enshrined in Articles 14, 19, and 21 of the Constitution. The underlying issue is not whether the State has the competence to regulate family law, but whether it really can bring a level of surveillance on consensual adult relationships in a manner that is difficult to align with democratic legal principles.
Constitutional framework, UCCU, and LIR
The Indian Constitution is based on a fair blending of equality and liberty. Article 13, which defines the law, provides that laws inconsistent with fundamental rights are void to the extent of inconsistency. Article 14 foregrounds equality, while Article 15(3) creates special provisions for women and children. Articles 19 and 21, as interpreted in the case of Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India (1978), require that State action be just, fair and reasonable. Prior to the enactment of these UCCs, the above-mentioned provisions provided direction to the Court, and based on that, judgments of the High Courts and the Supreme Court formed the foundational doctrine governing and regulating LIRs. In Indra Sarma v. V.K.V. Sarma (2013), the Supreme Court held that LIR is neither a crime nor a sin, noting that this type of consensual adult relationship consists of two things – pre-marital sex and cohabitation between two living persons.
With the enactment of these UCCs, a paradigm shift can be seen in the relationship between the state and the individual. First and foremost, these UCCs seek to regulate several aspects of one’s personal life, including marriage, maintenance, succession, adoption, and LIR. While section 378 of UCCU mandates that both partners in a LIR must submit a statement to the Registrar, section 380 addresses situations where a LIR will not be registered such as where at least one of the persons is already married or in a LIR or a minor or both partners are within the degrees of prohibited relationship. This provision, thus, requires information on the previous relationship status as a mandatory requirement for LIR registration. It also means that even a person who is a victim of an oppressive or failed marriage or irretrievable breakdown of marriage, could not be allowed to be in LIR. This legal approach goes against the judgment in Joseph Shine v. Union of India (2018).
Making adults to disclose their status to the government mandatory or face criminal punishment are regulations prima facie inconsistent with the guarantees of privacy, autonomy, and equality.
Of women’s rights
While Joseph Shine primarily dealt with the constitutionality of the adultery offence, the Supreme Court’s broader reasoning in it emphasised that marriage does not liquidate adults’ decisional autonomy, dignity, privacy and sexual agency. The Court’s decision has made it clear that the rule of law does not create a majoritarian consensus.
By prohibiting persons who are already married from entering a LIR and subjecting such relationships to state scrutiny, section 380 appears to reintroduce a form of what philosopher Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality: An Introduction (1976) calls ‘a State-imposed discipline’ of its subjects. This amounts to coercing them to behave in particular ways by controlling their intimate choices and inculcating State-endorsed values, the one which Joseph Shine) cautioned against. The Supreme Court established that married women have the right to sexual agency and autonomy, and that they are not property of their husbands and retain their dignity and privacy. Moreover, Justice Chandrachud had emphasised that a woman, living in an almost broken relationship, does not lose her sexual autonomy just because she was married.
Further, sections 384 and 386 of UCCU respectively mandates that a statement must be submitted upon termination of a LIR to the Registrar, and in case where partner/s in a LIR fail to register it, the Registrar shall get them to do so via a notice within 30 days of serving it. These provisions create the possibility of intrusive state scrutiny of intimate relationships. Based on the judgement of Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017), and a conjoint reading of Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution, an individual has the freedom to choose a partner without unnecessary State interference. The right to live according to one’s own choice without the need to inform the State constitutes the bedrock of dignity and personal liberty.
Section 387 goes further to adopt a punitive legal approach. It says that whoever either fails to register a LIR within 30 days of its establishment, or provides false information for registration, or fails to submit LIR statement after receiving a notice, will be punished for up to three months’ or six months’ imprisonment or with fine or both respectively. It violates the canon of penal law that punishment is the ultima ratio. Criminal sanctions shall not be employed merely to enforce prevailing moral and sexual preferences. Moral and sexual preferences are an arbitrary notion of vice and virtue. In the positivist framework, law is not grounded in morality, which leaves it open-ended. In Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court held that constitutional morality is distinct from social morality. The Constitution protects intimate decision-making even when such choices depart from prevailing social morality.
Additionally, the rights of consenting adults living in LIR are also protected by the International Human Rights Laws, such as Articles 12 and 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which establish the fundamental right to privacy and to have a family respectively. State intrusion into private life must remain exceptional and narrowly justified. In a traditional society, there are two ways to form a family: marriage and blood relationship. However, in modern society, ideological platitudes, shared habits, and likes and dislikes could connect two distant individuals and help form a family in their own sense of the term.
LIR, marriage, and the Supreme Court
While a LIR is distinct from marriage, it nevertheless represents a voluntary association between consenting adults and forms part of the broader sphere of personal choice and individual autonomy protected by constitutional and human rights norms. What constitutes a LIR cannot be decided by mere observation. The essential definition of LIR remains elusive. Unlike marriage, it is extremely amorphous, and legal intervention to regulate it violates basic human rights and is a question mark over the right of adult citizens of the country to have the agency to decide their partners for themselves and freedom to live together without the need to inform the state.
The mandatory registration of LIR raises serious concerns under Article 14 of the Constitution. While the State may classify relationships for legitimate regulatory purposes, such classification must bear a rational nexus to a constitutionally permissible objective. The law singles out adults in LIR for compulsory disclosure and potential penal consequences, while no comparable obligation is imposed on married couples to periodically report the existence or continuation of their intimate relationships to the State. The differential treatment appears difficult to justify, particularly when both relationships involve consenting adults exercising their personal choices. By imposing unique reporting obligations on one category of intimate relationships, the law risks creating an arbitrary distinction without sufficient constitutional justification. Moreover, under Article 14, LIR cannot be treated as a category distinct from the individual.
In the context of understanding women’s empowerment indicators, this becomes even more problematic, especially in a country and society where women’s lives are largely governed by patriarchal social norms that regulate their fundamental life decisions. Furthermore, imposing an obligation on the executive when ascertainment is based on opinion and intrudes on privacy rights can only lead to arbitrariness and legal tyranny. It fundamentally breaches the principle of ‘no harm’, the basis of criminality. Mandatory registration of LIR, which is arbitrary and fundamentally rooted in adults’ associational rights, is in direct conflict with Articles 19 and 21 of the Indian Constitution. Such a provision is also at odds with the rationale of several cases, including Puttaswamy (2017), Shafin Jahan (2018), Navtej Johar (2018), Joseph Shine (2018), and S. Khushboo (2010). To circumvent it, any government involvement must meet the strict criteria of reasonable classification, public purpose, and proportionality. On the other hand, is there an immediate need and beneficial social outcome of the State tracking the number of individuals living together as couples outside of marriage.
The Supreme Court’s decisions in Shayara Bano (2017) and K. S. Puttaswamy (2017) provide an important constitutional framework for evaluating the UCC. Shayara Bano affirms that personal law can no longer enjoy a blanket shield, particularly with respect to gender equality and dignity, whereas Puttaswamy recognised privacy, autonomy, and personal choice as fundamental rights. A harmonious and purposive reading of these two judgments suggests that the UCC must ensure a fair balance of fundamental rights and public interests.
Furthermore, the Constitution divides legislative power between the Union and the States via Articles 246 and 254, in conjunction with the Seventh Schedule. Issues related to marriage, divorce, adoption, succession, and other components of family law largely fall within the Concurrent List, thereby allowing both Parliament and State Legislatures to legislate on these matters. In cases where there is a conflict between a State law and a Parliamentary law, Article 254 provides a process to resolve such conflicts. However, the constitutional issues surrounding the compulsory registration of LIR are not merely about legislative authority; they hinge on fundamental rights. Therefore, having different state-level Civil Codes poses a conceptual dilemma: if various States implement distinct civil codes, achieving legal uniformity in a diverse country like India becomes increasingly challenging. Uniformity, by its very nature, cannot be realised amidst a variety of conflicting legal and judicial frameworks across territorial jurisdictions.
Marriage is also a human-made institution, and so is a live-in relationship. Conditioning it to be operated through a legal regime opens a deep-rooted mechanism of surveillance over sexual autonomy protected under Article 21
Way forward
The constitutional issue concerning the mandatory registration of LIR and a punitive approach by the State is not based on the State’s ability to govern family law, but rather on the precise question of whether it can compel adults to disclose personal decisions that pose no evident public threat. Various Supreme Court rulings alongside several recent High Courts’ decisions collectively uphold that privacy, dignity, and the freedom to make choices are core constitutional principles. Although the State can aim to achieve valid social goals through reforms in family and criminal laws, these goals must remain subservient to the individual and constitutional rights. UCC must be envisaged within the framework of the right to have rights.
Mandatory disclosure and punishment could dehumanise an individual for doing nothing wrong. Criminal Law must be the ‘last resort’. LIR could possibly be regulated through other means, such as advertisement, education and similar measures, which are sufficient to protect legitimate values and interests. In the Enlightenment tradition, the concept of limited government keeps criminalisation in check. Foucault has made it clear in his book Discipline and Punish (1975) that punishment has a social function. In the name of autonomy, individuals must be allowed to protect their privacy. The harm principle also holds that people should be allowed to do and say what they want, unless their conduct is harmful or poses an unreasonable risk of harm to others.
Marriage confers partial social membership; a child confers three-fourths membership; and a male child confers full membership in a traditional society. LIR negates this notion and allows its members to discard the tantrums of the marriage ceremony for those who want an alternative intimate relation to marriage. Whether it is a moral practice or not is always an open question. Marriage is also a human-made institution, and so is LIR. Conditioning it to be operated through a legal regime opens a deep-rooted mechanism of surveillance over sexual autonomy protected under Article 21. The current UCC laws suggest that both criminal law and LIR law are not only working cooperatively to regulate sex and sexuality but are functioning in tandem with one another as Bentham’s panoptic forces with the goal being to make citizens, what Foucault calls, ‘internalise the disciplining presence of the State.’ Should a UCC’s constitutional validity rest not merely on uniformity, but on a commitment to liberty, equality, and individual dignity, so that legal reform does not become a means of State monitoring over personal relationships, but a tool of constitutional liberation?