Late March of 2010, a special three-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice of India K. G. Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B.S. Chauhan observed that for a man and a woman in love, to live together be part of the right to life, and not a "criminal offence".  The case was related to a Tamil actress who had filed a batch of petitions to quash 22 FIRs filed against her by Tamil activist groups and forums for her alleged comments on pre-marital sex in interviews five years ago. This was a welcome decision and an egg on the face of conservative groups who had been harassing the hapless actress for speaking her mind on the subject. Legal harassment is commonplace in India, especially against those who dare to speak up against the perceived "conventional wisdom." Victimization of people for practicing alternative lifestyles is a common conservative method all over the world, and India is no exception in this regard. In so far as the rights of the victim are concerned, the Supreme Court judgment comes as a fresh breather for common citizens. There is indeed a strong social and cultural case against the practice of live-in relationships, but that needs to be addressed on a different plane. For the purposes of this inquest it is unnecessary to bring those in.

The learned justices noted in their judgment "If two people, man and woman, want to live together, who can oppose them? What is the offence they commit here?" So far so good. But then they reportedly brought in Radha and Krishna as an example of a live-in relationship, as some sort of an authoritative cultural precedent to support their judgment! As reported in the media, the justices noted "Drawing an analogy from the Hindu mythology, even Lord Krishna and Radha lived together." One should be utterly flabbergasted at Supreme Court justices using Radha-Krishna relationship in support of their techno-legal position. What was the need for such a reference? The case would have stood by itself on merit based on liberal democratic values within the framework of the Indian constitution.

Firstly, it is a disgrace on the Indian intelligentsia to refer to Hindu traditions as mere "mythology." Hindu traditions and civilizational history are dismissed as mythology in spite of the recent archaeological discoveries, for example at Bet Dwarka off the Gujarat coast along with numerous other findings spread all over India. Archaeological verification is actually not necessary to validate a certain tradition as authentic. Historians have begun to accept traditional history as valid history in the form of ‘Meta History.' Any genuine scientific inquiring mind would only be foolish to not consider the vast amount of Itihasa literature.

But that is least of the Supreme Court indiscretions. It is the mischaracterization of the Radha-Krishna relationship that amounts to a brutal assault on the Hindu traditions and culture, exacerbated by the fact that it was the highest judicial authority in the country that was committing the offence. By most traditions and as per Bhagvada Purana, Shri Krishna lived in Vrndavan in his early childhood. His raas-leela with the gopis refers to this period. At ten (10) years of age he leaves Vrndavan for education and then returns to Mathura, not to Vrndavan. It would be absurd to take this as a live-in relationship as the term is understood in modern parlance.