This is a case from June, 2022. The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a blue corner notice (a notice is issued by the Interpol to collect additional information from its member countries about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a crime) to 43-year-old Ronak Pandya to bring him to stand a trial in a 16-year-old criminal case filed by his wife Rutva for domestic violence and dowry demand, if he is located in United Kingdom, where he fled in 2005.

The state government on Thursday informed the Gujarat high court about issuance of blue corner notice by Interpol on June 18 upon intimation by an inspector general about the criminal case pending against Pandya.

A copy of the notice was given to the wife’s advocate Samirkhan Pathan, who withdrew Rutva’s petition filed in 2015 seeking directions to bring back her husband to face the trial, and to pay her maintenance.

Rutva had approached the high court and got him declared as an absconder in order to initiate proceedings against him. Pandya’s parents were convicted in 2009 after they were put on trial under section 498A of the IPC.

The CID (crime) found out that Pandya had fled the country for the UK by obtaining a passport in a fraudulent manner. On reluctance shown by the Centre for issuing red corner notice in matrimonial cases, Justice Sonia Gokani had questioned whether there is any bar on issuing such lookout notice in domestic violence cases or a notification issued in this regard.

Rutva and Ronak got married in 2004 and they decided to separate a year later. They filed a divorce petition with mutual consent on September 13, 2005 at city’s family court. This was when Rutva saw her husband last time. He never appeared in court. Upon inquiry, her mother-in-law informed her that Pandya had left for London. The woman approached high commissions of both the countries to locate her husband in the UK. The passport authorities had also declared that Ronak could not be traced.