According to the Court, live-in partners are not considered family members under jail regulations.

According to a recent ruling by the Delhi High Court in the case of Sonu Sonkar v. The Lt Governor, Delhi & Ors, parole cannot be granted in India on the grounds of continuing a marital engagement with a live-in spouse.

A live-in partner cannot claim the right to have a child with her partner who is incarcerated, according to Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, particularly if the convict's first wife is still alive.

The Bench argued that it would be detrimental to set a negative precedent if parole was granted to a convicted felon who already had a lawfully married wife and children from that union on the grounds that the felon wanted a kid or wanted to continue living with a live-in partner.

Should parole be granted based on these grounds, it will lead to an influx of petitions from convicts who may request parole on the grounds that they have a cohabiting partner who is not their legally wedded partner, or if the convict is single, their cohabiting partner who may wish to have a child with them. This Court believes that this is not permissible under the terms of the legislation as it currently exists and the applicable guidelines for parole grant under the Delhi Prison Rules, 2018," the Court stated.

Justice Sharma also ruled that a live-in partner is not considered a "family member" for the purposes of the prison regulation.

The Court stated clearly that the live-in partner of the petitioner, who is not recognized by law as a "wife" or "spouse," "cannot be held to fall within the scope of the definition of "family" under Delhi Prison Rules."

The observations were made by the Bench in response to a plea submitted by a man named Sonu Sonkar, a murderer who was requesting parole to marry his spouse and keep up social ties.

The Court discovered that Sonkar had received parole multiple times and that he had wed a different woman when he was on parole.

In order to keep up his marriage to this woman, he filed the current plea in an attempt to be granted parole.

But no documentation proving the marriage or demonstrating that he had separated from his previous wife was filed with the court.

After giving the case some thought, Justice Sharma stated that since the second woman was already pregnant and had given birth to a stillborn child, the issue of their marriage not being consummated does not come up.

The Court further pointed out that Sonkar's first wife had given birth to three children previously.

It denied the plea as a result.