When Goa TMC leader Leander Paes ill-treated, tortured and dumped his child’s mother Rhea Pillai?

MUMBAI: Tennis star Leander Paes, born to a Goan father and Bengali Christian mother in Kolkata, has now entered politics (with his induction into the All India Trinamool Congress party) and is campaigning in Goa claiming to be a Goa TMC leader. However some details are worth mentioning at this point as most Goans are unaware of the colorful background of Paes and his multiple relationships.

According to a Times of India article dated November 2019, Paes and his live-in partner, model Rhea Pillai, exchanged garlands in 2005 while Pillai was pregnant with their child as she was keen on getting married. This is stated in a reply filed by her before the Bandra Metropolitan Court in suburban Mumbai. Paes being a Christian knew that Pillai at that time was married (at least on paper) to Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, yet got into a relationship with Rhea Pillai and impregnated her out of wedlock.

Pillai told the court that Paes was not ready to marry her formally, but since she insisted as she was carrying their child, and she didn’t want to have the child out of marriage, Paes enacted the fake marriage, which he tried to deny later on.

Rhea told the Court in Mumbai, “While we were living in a hotel in Colaba, and the applicant (Pillai) and Respondent No 1 (Paes) visited the Ganesh Mandir at Colaba Market and exchanged garlands in the presence of Lord Ganesh (sic)”. Leander Paes did not even afford the mother of his unborn child a decent marriage, but enacted a sham of a ceremony to give fake legitimacy to his unborn child, whom his live-in partner was expecting,” Rhea’s lawyer had argued in the court.

According to TOI, the statement by Pillai is being seen as her response to Paes’s contention that their relationship was “not in the nature of marriage”.

After this sham ceremony, when the matter went to court, Paes tried to deny his marriage with Pillai.

“The Respondent No 1 (Paes) had no desire to accord her (Pillai) the love, respect and dignity of a wife. The applicant (Pillai) states that the Respondent No 1 is a tennis player by profession and is always on the move, travelling from one place to another for at least 10 months in a year. The applicant states that the Respondent No 1 always avoided marriage as marriage involves commitment, sincerity and responsibility,” Pillai claimed in her reply.

Rhea Pillai had filed a case under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, alleging that Paes and his father Vece caused her and her eight-year-old daughter mental and economic cruelty, denying them the basic necessities of a decent life.

She has accused them of throwing her out of their “shared domestic residence” on May 8 and of harassment and ill-treatment. Pillai’s application sought to prevent Paes and his family from denying her access to the Bandra flat, and to stop them from taking possession of her belongings. She has alleged that Paes and his family tried to take away her belongings, which she had purchased with her own, self-earned money.

Pillai also alleged that Paes had borrowed Rs 14 lakh from her in 2009-10, as he was in need of money, but even after nine years failed to return the money and denied having taken it later on.

She further alleged that Paes never financially supported her or her daughter, because of which she was forced to work and earn her living on her own.

She told the court in her written submission that Paes desired to keep her in a state of dependency and deprive her of status and dignity and therefore did not make any attempt to purchase any assets jointly or include her name in any business ventures initiated by him, in spite of her interest and keenness to work. She alleged that Paes used her to satisfy his sexual needs and tried to dump her when she got pregnant.

Paes, his father and one associate threatened her at her “shared household”, traumatised her and warned her to vacate the house along with her daughter or else “she won’t come to know what happened to her and her daughter”, Rhea Pillai had told the court.

Pillai had also filed a police complaint against Paes for physical torture, which was apparently scuttled by the authorities due to Paes’s clout.

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(With inputs from Times of India)