Settle dispute amicably for your child, high court tells Paes, Pillai

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked tennis player Leander Paes and his estranged partner, socialite Rhea Pillai, to settle their dispute amicably in

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked tennis player Leander Paes and his estranged partner, socialite Rhea Pillai, to settle their dispute amicably in the interest of their 10-year-old daughter Aiyana.

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“Take it to the logical end in the interest of the child,” Justice Revati Mohite-Dere told Paes’s and Pillai’s lawyers, who shared their proposed terms of settlement.

The court also said it will hear an appeal by 51-year-old Pillai, challenging a sessions court order, on August 22 as Paes is expected to return to India after August 15. The sessions court had ruled on November 27, 2015 that Pillai was not eligible for maintenance under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, thereby overturning the order of a magistrate court on March 30, 2015.

In June 2014, Rhea had filed a complaint against Paes and his father, Vece Paes, alleging mental harassment and ill-treatment, and sought Rs 4 lakh a month as maintenance. Paes objected to this, saying Pillai was not legally separated from her ex-husband, actor Sanjay Dutt, when he (Paes) lived with her in 2005-06. As she divorced Dutt only in 2008, she was not entitled to any relief under the Domestic Violence Act, Paes contended.

It was pointed out on his behalf that the Supreme Court has held that a relationship between a married woman and a man other than her husband does not fall within the purview of the term “relationship in the nature of marriage” as envisaged under the DV Act, and therefore Pillai was not entitled to claim any relief under the act.

Pillai, on the other hand, contended that she had separated from Dutt in 2001 and that their 2008 divorce was a mere formality. She said that since she had lived with Paes and given birth to a daughter in 2006, theirs was a live-in relationship as defined in the Domestic Violence Act.

On March 30, 2015, the magistrate court ruled in her favour, noting that if a woman, irrespective of her age and marital status, is in a domestic relationship of any nature with an adult male, she can be considered an aggrieved person under the act and is entitled to claim relief under it. However, eight months later, the sessions court overturned this ruling, which Pillai is now challenging in the high court.