The Kerala High Court on Wednesday granted transit anticipatory bail to Mohammed Farmaan Khan, husband of Kumbh Mela viral girl Monalisa Bhosle, for a month in a case registered in Madhya Pradesh. The case involves allegations that Bhosle was kidnapped and that the couple’s marriage is invalid.
A single bench of Justice Kauser Edappagath granted the first petitioner, Farmaan Khan, one month to approach the jurisdictional court in Madhya Pradesh for anticipatory bail. “Bail application is disposed with liberty to the applicant to approach the jurisdictional court and seek for anticipatory bail in accordance with law within a period of one month from today. The Applicant No. 1 shall not be arrested till the expiry of the said one month,” the court said.
After hearing detailed arguments in the anticipatory bail plea of the inter-faith couple, the court had reserved its verdict on Tuesday.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) S.V. Raju, appearing for the Madhya Pradesh government, objected to the maintainability of the couple’s plea. He argued that they should have approached a court in Madhya Pradesh for anticipatory bail since the FIR against Khan is lodged there. He said the bail application lacked sufficient pleadings to justify approaching the Kerala High Court instead of courts in Madhya Pradesh, given that the crime was registered in MP. He relied on the Supreme Court decision of Priya Indoria v. State of Karnataka.
It was also pointed out that SC/ST Act offences have also been incorporated against Farmaan and therefore, anticipatory bail plea is non-maintainable in the light of the bar under Section 18 of the SC/ST Act. It is alleged that the second petitioner was a minor at the time of the marriage and that Farmaan obtained the marriage certificate through forgery. The ASG maintained that Bhosle was born in December 2009, and not January 2008 as claimed by the couple.
The petitioners’ counsel, Advocate M. Sasindran had submitted that the couple fell in love while filming and they decided to get married in Neyyattinkara in Kerala. Even though the second petitioner’s father was initially amenable to the marriage, after he returned to Madhya Pradesh, he was won over by some fundamentalists and that is the reason why he preferred the complaint.
Monalise Bhosle rose to fame after videos of her selling beads during the 2025 Kumbh Mela went viral on social media last year. She married Farmaan Khan earlier this year in Kerala.
Their interfaith marriage was widely publicised in the media. However, controversy arose after allegations surfaced that Bhosle was only 16 years old and had not attained the legal age for marriage when she married Farman Khan on March 11 of this year.