The couple has approached the Bombay High Court alleging they have been threatened with excommunication.After 10 months of separation in 2013, an elderly couple from Wadala who decided to reconcile and continue with their marriage of 32 years was in for a shock when their counsellors --a body representing their community –said they won’t be allowed to reunite and live together again.The husband, 55, filed a petition in the Bombay High Court last year seeking criminal action against officebearers of the Jama Masjid Jamatul Muslimeen Dangar, including for intimidation and threatening him and his wife with excommunication. The petition alleges that members of this body are forcing a divorce upon the couple and not letting them reunite.The petition, filed through advocate J S Kini, seeks directions from the HC to the police to make sure that leaders from this body are restrained from forcing the couple to stay apart. According to the petition, the couple was married in 1981 and has a 21-yearold daughter.After differences developed between them, they approached the Jama Masjid Jamatul Muslimeen Dangar early last year. There, they were told told they should opt for divorce. Some documents too were executed and, it is alleged, the body took Rs 3.5 lakh as well as 70 gms of gold from the woman’s parents.After several months of staying apart, the couple ‘realised the mistake’ of approaching the body to settle their personal disputes, and decided they should start living together again. When they approached the body with their decision, the petition alleges, its members refused to accept their reconciliation and instead started threatening the man, saying that he should not shift in where his wife and daughter were staying.The petition also says that the couple then went in for a legal opinion to ascertain if their marriage was still valid. They were told that based on certain court judgements, the so-called divorce hadn’t happened at all. “Instead of improving, things started worsening after the legal opinion was submitted to the members,” says the petition.During the hearing on the petition on Tuesday, an advocate who appeared for the body denied the allegations made in the petition, and submitted that the people involved were adults and no one could stop them from living together, if they so desired.Kini, however, refuted the claims made by the advocate and sought directions from the court. A division bench of Justices Naresh Patil and Anuja Prabhudessai is likely to hear the petition on Wednesday.