Married Man Elopes With Lover, Gujarat High Court Asks Him to Pay 50% Police Search Cost

Ahmedabad: In an interesting turn of events, a man in Ahmedabad has been asked to pay half of the amount spent by the state government to trace a woman with whom he had eloped. The unprecedented order was passed by the Gujarat High Court on Tuesday, reported Times of India. Notably, Raghabhai Parmar, who was already married, had eloped with a 20-year-old woman from Rajkot in May 2021. The police spent more than seven months to trace the woman who had eloped with Parmar.

When the woman went missing, her father had approached the high court and police began searching for her. The couple was traced by police 7 months later, and the woman was returned to her parents. However, when it was revealed that the man had been already married to someone else, the High court decided to recover the amount spent to trace and bring the woman back from Parmar. The recovery order was also a punishment for eloping with the woman and exploiting her despite being married, the report said.

The Rajkot Police told the court that the amount in tracing the woman amounted to Rs 42,500. Officers invested invested 17,710 hours into the seven-month period of investigation. In addition, the expenses incurred to remain physically present before the high court was nearly Rs 75,000. So, a total of Rs 1,17,500 had been spent to bring the woman back.

“Though we could have although directed the entire amount to be paid by the petitioner, we deem it appropriate to direct 50% of the said amount which shall be sum of Rs 55,000 (rounded off),” the court order reads.

The court has now asked Parmar to deposit the amount with the high court registry. In case he fails to pay, the registry (judicial) will bring it to the court’s notice and it might initiate contempt of court proceedings against Parmar. Once Parmar deposits the amount, the court has ordered it to be deposited into the Police Welfare Fund, Rajkot City.