Wife blames husband’s birth time for marriage failure in petition

CHENNAI: After her marriage failed, a city-based celebrity astrologer’s daughter recently filed a domestic violence complaint claiming that her in-laws changed their son’s time of birth by two minutes in the horoscope. The astrologer, who has clients ranging from Kollywood celebrities to politicians and bureaucrats, had matched horoscopes for his daughter’s wedding.

“The allegation (of providing wrong birth time) does not amount to the act of domestic violence and is beyond the level of logical thinking,” the court observed while dismissing her petition. Eventually, it was proved in court that no such fabrications were made either.

Apart from the contention on the time of birth, the woman also made other allegations in her complaint, which too were found to be false in court, by her admission.

“The deposition of the petitioner (woman) recorded in cross-examination in its entirety negates her case,” Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, Anita Anand stated.

The petitioner, Sandhya (name changed), a post-graduate in architecture was working as a teacher at a premier educational institution in the city before her wedding. She got married to Rahul (name changed), a graduate of a hotel management institute in Europe presently employed at a resort on a Caribbean island, on August 23, 2018.

According to Sandhya, her in-laws first approached her father through a matrimony website, in which the date of birth was mentioned as 6.13 am. Since her father opined that the horoscopes don’t match, the man’s family sent another horoscope in which the date of birth was 6.15 am and the two families went ahead with the wedding.

Sandhya’s father runs an astrology training institute in the city and also conducts online classes. His website and socials have photographs of him with top actors in the Tamil Industry, sports personalities, and politicians among others. Several of them attended the wedding.

At the time of the wedding, Rahul was working in Doha. Sandhya contended that her in-laws made her family spend nearly Rs 2 crores for the engagement and the wedding. She also said that she was tortured physically and mentally by her in-laws after the wedding, who allegedly demanded a boutique hotel with 25 rooms from her family.

She further stated that her husband left her intentionally in India when leaving for Doha after the wedding and when she eventually reached there, he abused her verbally and physically. She also contended that he returned home intoxicated. “Being well aware of my father’s financial status, my in-laws used him as an ATM,” Sandhya’s petition stated.

However, when the petition came up for hearing, Sandhya’s allegations were disproven with documentary evidence. Rahul’s family contended that the allegations by their daughter-in-law were made during the COVID lock-down period, after Rahul went to work in the Bahamas in January 2020, just before the COVID outbreak.

“A look-out circular is issued against Rahul, who is ready to come to India. But, he will be imprisoned on his arrival using the astrologer’s influence,” his counsel submitted in court.

With documentary evidence, the man’s family proved in court that she stayed in India after the wedding only for nine days and most of the days were spent on wedding after-parties, visiting temples and there was no scope for harassment by the in-laws asking her to do household chores. The couple also met a top actor in Kollywood and took photographs with him three days after the wedding.

After Rahul left for the Bahamas in January 2020, Sandhya initiated the legal proceedings after which he too filed a divorce petition from abroad through his father.

The court noted that only due to the COVID lockdown, she could not be made to travel to the Bahamas as air travel was suspended till January 2022. Since he did not respond to her calls and messages, Sandhya alleged that Rahul had extramarital affairs, but could not assert anything about the same when she deposed before the court in person, the court noted. When she was asked whether her father’s prediction are wrong now that the marriage failed, Sandhya denied and stated that only her father knows on what basis the horoscopes were matched and can only be articulated by him.