india

Updated: Nov 29, 2018 22:36 IST

Lalu Prasad Yadav’s elder son Tej Pratap Yadav, who had hugely upset his family over his decision to divorce his wife of six months, remains defiant and is adamant on separation from his wife Aishwarya Rai.

On Thursday, the Lalu scion and Bihar’s former health minister appeared before the family court of Uma Shankar Dwivedi at the Patna civil court premises and pleaded for divorce. The court, upon hearing his plea, issued notice to Aishwarya to appear on January 8, 2019.

Tej Pratap also denied reports, reflected in an earlier version of this report, that he had changed his mind and would withdraw the divorce petition.

Since morning, a huge crowd of supporters of both families and inquisitive locals had gathered at the court premises to witness proceedings in the case. Amit Khema, a Supreme Court advocate, and Yaswant Kumar Sharma, an advocate of Patna civil court, appeared on behalf of Tej Pratap and presented his stand to go ahead with a divorce.

Seeing the assembly of a huge crowd at the court room, Tej Pratap requested the court to hold in-camera hearing and asked others to leave.

However, the crowd that also included several advocates, did not move away and remained there. Later, at the request of the Tej Pratap’s counsel, the case proceeding was conducted in the judge’s chamber.

Later, speaking to reporters, Sharma said, “Tej Pratap appeared before the court and presented his stand. After hearing him, the court passed an order to issue a notice to Aishwarya Rai to appear before it on January 8. Tej Pratap has also been asked to be present on that day,” he added.

Sharma said the court has accepted that it is a maintainable case and would proceed further with it, he added.

After the proceeding, Tej Pratap said, “I will fight for justice till my last breathe.”

His friends said he is defiant and would not have a change of mind anymore.

A man and a woman were also present at the court room on behalf of Rai. They refused to disclose their names.

Ever since he had filed the divorce petition, Tej Pratap had been keeping himself away from Patna, shuttling between Delhi and pilgrim centres across the country. Justifying his decision to quit the marriage, he had said that the marriage with Aishwarya was a ‘mismatch’ and there was ‘no point living a life of misery’.