Rajesh Khanna case: Supreme Court rejects Anita Advani's plea seeking wife status, calls it 'luxury litigation'

Anita Advani’s decade-long legal battle seeking recognition as the late Rajesh Khanna’s wife has come to an end after the Supreme Court on Thursday refused to hear her appeal. The bench dismissed the matter as “luxury litigation”.

A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Prasanna B Varale found no reason to take up Advani’s plea, which challenged an April 1 ruling by the Bombay High Court. “This is luxury litigation,” the bench remarked, according to PTI.

Advani, who says she was with Khanna during the final years of his life until his death in 2012, told the court she was “seeking dignity”. As PTI noted, Her counsel argued that the civil suit seeking a declaration of marriage was based on “some sense of dignity”.

The case had already been dismissed by two lower courts. In 2017, a Dindoshi sessions court in Mumbai rejected her civil suit seeking a declaration of marriage. The suit was filed after the Bollywood actor died in July 2012, aged 69. The Bombay High Court subsequently dismissed her appeal against that decision earlier this year.

A long legal battle

Advani has maintained that she and Khanna lived together for several years. She has alleged that in 2012 she was forced to leave Aashirwad, his bungalow in Mumbai’s Bandra neighbourhood, by his estranged wife Dimple Kapadia, daughter Twinkle Khanna and son-in-law Akshay Kumar.

In 2013, she approached a magistrate under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, naming Kapadia, her daughters and Kumar. She sought monthly maintenance and a three-bedroom apartment in Bandra.

That complaint was also dismissed. In 2015, the Bombay High Court accepted petitions filed by Kapadia and her family and quashed the proceedings. The court ruled that Advani’s relationship with Khanna did not qualify as a relationship “in the nature of marriage”, meaning she could not seek relief under the domestic violence law. It also held that Khanna’s relatives could not be included in the case, as Advani had never shared a home with them.

From films to a memoir

Now in her 60s, Advani made her screen debut in 1978 as a dancer in a minor role in Shalimar, starring Dharmendra and Zeenat Aman. She later appeared in films including Saazish and Daasi. In 2013, she participated in Salman Khan-hosted reality show Bigg Boss, but was voted out early.

Two years ago, she released a memoir, The Endearingly Wicked Ways of Rajesh Khanna, timed to coincide with the actor’s birth anniversary. The book draws on her recollections of Khanna and their time together, offering her account of the private life of the screen star, including stories about his temperament.

Speaking on the Meri Saheli podcast, Advani said their relationship was known among their friends.

“There was no secret about our relationship among his friends and mine. Initially, we tried to hide our relationship but when it became obvious, then it spread. We were not hiding our relationship,” she said.

Aashirwad also has a history in the film industry. The bungalow previously belonged to actor Rajendra Kumar, who was reportedly persuaded by Khanna to sell it to him. The property was sold to an industrialist in 2014, two years after Khanna’s death.