NEW DELHI - Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt, who married his girlfriend at a Hindu temple, has been unable to register the marriage after the bride forged residence documents, leaving the alliance legally invalid, an official said today.
The spotlight seems to refuse to leave Dutt, a beefy, actionhero, whose third marriage is making as much news as his court battles to clear his name in an illegal guns case.
Dutt and girlfriend Manyata married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in the western city of Mumbai this month, two years after they started dating.
The couple applied to register their marriage in the tourist haven of Goa where Manyata said she had lived, and provided residence documents.
But their application was put on hold after her documents were found to be forged, and they have now withdrawn their application to register the marriage.
"We had kept the marriage pending, but now they do not wish to pursue it further," Vithal Salkar, marriage registrar in Goa, said. "The documents were not proper."
Dutt, 48, could not be immediately reached for a comment. Neither was it immediately clear if they could apply to register the marriage in another state.
The actor, among the highest paid in Bollywood, is out on bail, while he challenges his conviction for getting illegal guns from gangsters connected with India's worst bombing in Mumbai that killed 257 people in 1993.
Dutt's first wife died of brain tumor, while his second marriage ended in divorce. Dutt has a daughter from his first marriage.
