Himachal Pradesh High Court: A writ of habeas corpus filed for producing the wife of Petitioner 2 was dismissed by a Division Bench comprising of Tarlok Singh Chauhan & Chander Bhusan Barowalia, JJ.
It was stated in the petition that the wife of Petitioner 2 was forcefully restrained from joining him at their matrimonial home by her relatives. The respondents denied to have forcefully restrained the wife of Petitioner 2 from joining him.
The Court perused the record and found the submissions of the petitioner to be without merit. The Court found that in the affidavit filed by the wife of Petitioner 2, she categorically stated that she was not being restrained from meeting the petitioner, in fact, she doesn’t want to live with him anymore. The Court held that the wife being a major was free to reside with anyone she likes. There was no material to show that she was confined against her will. It appeared that there was material discord between the parties. Illegal detention of the corpus is a sine qua non for issuing a writ of habeas corpus under Article 226. Since the basic requirement for filing the petition was not fulfilled in the instant case, the Court declined to entertain the petition which was dismissed holding it to be misconceived. [Master Rishab v. State of Himachal Pradesh, 2018 SCC OnLine HP 562, dated 04-05-2018]