Revoke marriage in Goa, Sanjay-Manyata tell authorities

Mumbai, Feb 28 (IANS) In a bizarre turn of events, film star Sanjay Dutt and wife Manyata have revoked their marriage in Goa.

The couple applied to the Goa Marriage Registrar seeking to revoke their marriage Thursday and the Goa marriage registrar has accepted the application permitting them to withdraw the marriage. The wedding now stands cancelled.

The couple in their application said they did not desire to honour their marriage under the Portuguese Civil Code.

Sources said the couple decided to cancel their marriage to avoid the legal tangle arising out of the alleged fake residential certificate that the registrar had accused Manyata of submitting at the time of the wedding.

The duo apparently wanted to register their marriage under the Special Marriages Act but was not informed at the time of marriage that the Act was not applicable in Goa.

Independent sources in Goa confirmed this when contacted by IANS over phone Thursday afternoon.

The development comes barely three weeks after the couple entered into wedlock in Goa and followed it up with a Hindu marriage ceremony in Mumbai.

Circles close to Dutt described the development an indication of how Dutt and Manyata are "frustrated with the continuing legal complications hampering their wedlock".

A close friend of Dutt, filmmaker Nitin Manmohan, told IANS Thursday that Sanjay and Manyata just want to lead "a normal, peaceful married life, but the legalities rocking their marriage has left a bad taste".

Manmohan said though he had not yet spoken to Dutt about the matter, he sympathised with the couple.

The marriage led to several controversies. First, the Goa marriage registrar's office slapped a notice on the couple and then Manyata's ex-husband Meraj-Ur-Rehman claimed that he was still married to Dutt's wife.

A fortnight after the marriage was registered in Goa, the Marriage Registrar there served Manyata with a show cause notice questioning her on the fake residential certificate that she had submitted.

An official of the Goa government was suspended allegedly on ground of accepting invalid documents and registering the marriage in the tiny tourist paradise.

• Celebrity News