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VADODARA: Drunkards have often been dragged to court by their spouses. But in dry Gujarat , a 41-year-old teetotaller has approached a family court in Vadodara, seeking divorce from his 37-yearold wife for pressuring him to become a bootlegger.

For the past 15 years, Ramesh Apte has been a labourer at a masala mill. But he says his wife, Reshma, finds the rewards of his toils inadequate. Apte says Reshma wants him to take her out for dinners at classy restaurants every week. He complains that her menu of desired weekly entertainment also includes movies at multiplexes. Moreover, according to Apte, Reshma demands annual breaks at hill stations.

Apte says Reshma wants him to join her uncle’s thriving bootlegging business so that he can make more money with “low investment” and “zero losses”. “For the past two years, my wife and her family members have been pressuring me to start a liquor business in partnership so that she can improve her lifestyle,” says Apte’s petition in the family court. Apte maintains that he will continue to labour at the masala mill rather than join the liquor business.

Apte’s divorce petition states that when he refused to turn to bootlegging, his wife started badgering his aged mother to persuade her son to change his mind. “Whenever my client intervened, he had to face abuses in front of children and often face embarrassment in front of neighbours,” said Apte’s advocate A J Chauhan.

After a series of ugly fights, Reshma left Apte with their children and registered a complaint of cruelty against her husband and his relatives at the Karelibaug police station. In his divorce plea, Apte has stated that Reshma’s bootlegger uncle had taken away his scooter which he believed could be used to ferry liquor. Although Apte has got the scooter back, perturbed by ugly fights, he moved the family court which recently issued a notice to Reshma. The couple have two children.

