Wife of senior advocate Surendra Bhandari has moved the National Women Commission accusing him of refusing to register their marriage of six years and threatening to kill him.
Janaki Pandey has claimed in her complaint that Bhandari did not turn up for registration of the marriage at the ward office of Lalitpur Metropolitan City Ward Number 32 and threatened to kill her instead when she called a meeting of friends and relatives to resolve the dispute. She had also gone to the police demanding security before going to the National Women Commission.
"A complaint against senior advocate Surendra Bhandari by her wife has been received and is in the process of hearing. I don't know more than that," National Women Commission Chair Kamala Parajuli confirmed about the complaint.
Pandey, who is also an advocate by training, has told Setopati that she had to go to the National Women Commission after Bhandari refused to register their marriage and started to threaten to kill her and implicate her in a criminal case.
Pandey has claimed that they had a traditional marriage in presence of family members on February 2, 2018 after Bhandari divorced his second wife, and she has been staying at his house in Sainbu, Lalitpur since then.
She has added that Bhandari proposed to register the marriage mentioning that it happened in the current year when she had to update her personal details for the National Identity Card as a married woman to renew her passport when she had to go to Switzerland around eight months back.
"He refused to register the marriage when I asked why it should not be registered with the real date now when we have stayed together as husband and wife for so many years and the marriage can be registered mentioning the real date of marriage," she has stated.
Bhandari has told Setopati that he would not speak about the issue on the media when the complaint has already reached a state body. He has also claimed that it is not an issue that the media should cover. "This is a matter of family. The Constitution and international human rights law have also recognized the right to privacy. The media should write about issues of public concerns. It should not write about personal issues and harm prestige of the individual," he has argued.
"The media is not a court. You all should not write in a way that it forms public position when the process is not completed. I will have to go to the court if you write before the process is completed."
