Mumbai: The Pune police last week arrested a 33-year-old businessman for allegedly concealing his previous marriage and subjecting his wife to dowry and caste-based harassment, days after the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court rejected her pleas to terminate her pregnancy.
Bhagyashri, a software engineer, had claimed that she had learnt about her pregnancy after finding out about Rohit’s alleged bigamy. She approached the Bombay High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court, arguing that she did not wish to bear the child of a man who had concealed his existing marriage. However, both courts denied her relief as she was beyond the 24th week of pregnancy. Now in the seventh month of her pregnancy, Bhayashri had found herself in a courtroom at the Bombay High Court in rather unusual circumstances. In her petition, filed through advocate Narayan Mishra, she stated that she wanted to abort her child, arguing that continuing the pregnancy was likely to cause grave injury to her mental health, given the circumstances in which she had discovered her husband’s alleged deception. They claimed that when Rohit was in police custody, he had admitted that his previous marriage had still not ended and that he had gotten rid of the mobile phone he used in Pune.
Bhagyashri subsequently left Rohit’s home following marital disputes and filed a police complaint against him on July 20, accusing him of bigamy, domestic harassment, causing hurt, criminal intimidation and violations of the SC/ST Act. Six days later, she discovered that she was 13 weeks pregnant. On October 31, the Pune police filed a remand application urging the sessions court to send Rohit to judicial custody. The sessions court remanded Rohit to 14 days of judicial custody on October 31, Mishra said.
Meanwhile, Rohit has filed a bail application before the Bombay High Court, which is expected to be heard on Tuesday.
She later became suspicious after checking his Instagram account on his phone and noticing that several people with the same surname had been blocked. She contacted one of them independently and discovered that he was the brother of Rohit’s previous wife. Bhagyashri married Rohit on February 16, 2025, after the two met on a matrimonial website.
She subsequently learnt that Rohit’s divorce petition was pending before a family court in Mumbai, meaning his earlier marriage had not legally ended.
However, the high court dismissed her petition last month, observing that her case did not fall into any of the categories or situations under which women were permitted to terminate their pregnancy up to the 24th week, under the MTP Rules, 2003.
