The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed former actor Anita Advani’s plea challenging a Bombay High Court order that rejected her request to recognise her relationship with late Bollywood superstar Rajesh Khanna as a marriage, describing the case as “luxury litigation”.
A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Prasanna B Varale said there were no grounds to entertain the petition.
Advani’s counsel told the court that the plea was about seeking dignity, arguing that her civil suit seeking a declaration of the relationship was rooted in that right.
Advani had challenged the High Court’s April 1 order upholding a 2017 decision of a Mumbai sessions court that rejected her civil suit seeking similar relief following Khanna’s death in July 2012.
She claimed to have been in a live-in relationship with Khanna for several years before being evicted from his Mumbai bungalow, Aashirwad, in 2012 by his estranged wife, actor Dimple Kapadia, their daughter Twinkle Khanna and son-in-law Akshay Kumar.
In 2013, Advani filed a complaint under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, against Kapadia and her family members. She sought monthly maintenance and a three-bedroom flat in Mumbai’s upscale Bandra area.
In 2015, the Bombay High Court quashed the complaint, holding that Advani’s relationship with Khanna was not akin to marriage and therefore did not qualify for relief under the domestic violence law. It also ruled that Khanna’s family members could not be implicated in the proceedings as Advani had never lived with them.
(With inputs from PTI)