In what is seen as a major alleviation for Sanjay Dutt, and Manyata, a sessions court said on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 that Manyata's divorce against her first husband Mairaj-ur-Rehman is actually valid. The sessions court set aside a magistrate's order which had asked the couple to appear in the court in order to answer the charges of adultery and bigamy.

 

The magistrate court had issued this order after Manyata's first husband; Mairaj-ur-Rahman had said that she did not get divorce from him before marrying Sanjay Dutt. Meanwhile, in his judgment, judge S N Sardesai held that Manyata did give proper divorce to Mairaj under the Muslim system of 'Khula'. Thus it is not a valid point that Dutt committed adultery by marrying Manyata.

 

Sanjay Dutt's lawyers have been saying all along that Manyata has given divorce to her first husband before she married Sanjay Dutt. She gave divorce four years ago but Mairaj had actually done nothing about it until the time he heard that she is getting married to Sanju. However, it is interesting to note that Mairaj himself is in police custody at the moment on charges of sending some obscene messages to some of the Bollywood actresses in the industry.

 

Under the 'Khula' system, it was stated by the lawyers, that a women could give divorce to her husband by simply sending a notice to him through a qazi. The court was told that the legal process under Section 494 and 497 was not valid because Manyata had infact given a proper divorce to Mairaj. However, opposing all this, Mairaj's lawyer Tasneen Khan said that she would now move the case to the Bombay High Court and would appeal against the order passed by the sessions court.