Remember the Rajasthan High Court justice of ‘peacock tears’ fame? He is now part of a bench of the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission that asked the Centre on Wednesday to enact a law banning live-in relationships so that women can live a dignified life. According to them, women in live-in relationships are apparently like concubines. Yes, you read that right.
“Keeping a woman as a concubine is against her dignity because this word tantamount to character assassination. For a woman, life as a concubine is not right to life and such a woman cannot protect her fundamental rights,” the commission said in their recommendation letter, according to Hindustan Times.
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Prakash Chandra Tatia, the chief of the commission and former chief justice of the Jharkhand High Court, was also part of the bench along with Mahesh Chandra Sharma.
The commission also invited suggestions from “stakeholders”, including police and the civil society, on whether a law be enacted to provide security to women in live-in relationships.
The Indian Express reported that they also wanted an “intense awareness campaign” to keep women away from live-in relationships.
Both Tatia and Sharma have a history of making bizarre remarks about women (in Sharma’s case female birds) and sexuality. Because how can a woman live a good life if her sexuality is not controlled by men the law?
In 2017, Sharma had managed to leave the entire country in tears when he explained that the peacock was a “pious” animal and hence a brahmachari (celibate). He claimed, very confidently, that the peahen drinks tears of the peacock to get pregnant.
That’s not all, he also believes that cows are the ‘the most superior animal’ and they breath out oxygen.
Tatia, meanwhile, thinks that live-in relationships are an act of terror on society. “What sort of freedom is this…without notice (people) start living in with someone else, then a third person…this is infecting the society. Two consenting adults don’t have the right to end the dignity of the entire society,” Tatia had said in 2017.
Perhap both Tatia and Sharma seem to be unaware that the Supreme Court has said in the past that an adult couple had the right to have a live-in relationship and even gave it a provision under the Domestic Violence Act, 2005.