Bhopal: A 19-year-old married woman has got legal nod to live “freely” with a man of her choice after she told the Gwalior bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court that her husband – of 40 years, more than twice her age – was abusing her and she did not want to go back to her parents as they too did not wish her well.The April 2 order by a division bench of Justice Anand Pathak and Justice Pushpendra Yadav came on a habeas corpus petition filed by the woman’s husband, who had alleged that his wife was being held captive by a young man.The woman testified in the presence of her husband, parents and the man she was living with that the man gave her the freedom she wanted and there was no question of returning to people who “were not my well-wishers”.When asked where she wanted to live in the future, the woman said she wanted to live with the person accused of keeping her in captivity.

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Government lawyer Anjali Gnani, who was appointed by the court to personally counsel the woman, told the judges that she stood by her stance of walking out of her marriage with an older man after experiencing “discord rather than harmony”.The court also interrogated the young man with whom she had come to live. He admitted his feelings for her, saying he wanted to marry her after her divorce and pledged that he would take care of her and “not bother her in any way”.The court order said that since the woman was acting of her own free will, the habeas corpus petition had “defeated its purpose”. Before allowing her to live with a man other than her husband, the judges directed that the woman be kept under the state’s Shaurya Didi framework for six months.Gyanani and a female constable named Bhavana, who had produced the woman in the court, were appointed as her Shaurya Didi.The concept, developed by the Gwalior bench in the 2024 case of Harchand Gurjar versus State of Madhya Pradesh, envisages a woman police officer or a qualified person under the Juvenile Justice Act as a mentor and support person for women and girls in vulnerable situations, especially girls who are victims of sexual offences, girls in need of care and protection and children in conflict with the law.