Rippling co-founder Prasanna S moves Madras High Court alleging police harassing him at wife's behest

Co-founder of Rippling, Prasanna Sankaranarayanan, has moved the Madras High Court alleging that police have been harassing him at the behest of his estranged wife, Dhivya Sashidhar..A thread on X (formerly Twitter) by the tech co-founder recently went viral after he accused his wife of filing false cases in a bid to abduct their son and take him out of the country amid ongoing matrimonial disputes between them.Sankaranarayanan has claimed that the Tamil Nadu police have been continuously harassing him and trying to take his son away from him owing to a false kidnapping complaint filed by his estranged wife. Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan today directed the police not to harass Sankaranarayanan..Senior Advocates A Ramesh and Geeta Luthra, and Advocates Aadarsh Kothari, Ashwini Ramesh, Deepika Murali, Anila Rajendran, Karthik Sundaram, Nivea SR, Harinarayanan K and Raja M represented Sankaranarayanan..According to Sankaranarayanan's plea, the police had earlier tried to enter his hotel room on March 7 to take away the child, although Sankaranarayanan had left the hotel room some time earlier, rendering the police's attempt unsuccessful. He has claimed that between March 12 and March 21, the police visited his mother and his friend, Gokul S, in attempts to trace Sankaranarayanan's whereabouts and to possibly take away his son. As per the plea, Sankaranarayanan's son is well and happy with his father. Sankaranarayanan has alleged that despite this, the police made roving inquiries about his whereabouts while visiting his mother and even arrested his friend, Gokul S, from Bengaluru. Gokul was kept back in the police station for around three days despite there being no first information report (FIR) against him, he has alleged.Sankaranarayanan added that the police threatened that they would release Gokul only once Sankaranarayanan came to the police station with his son. .Sankaranarayanan maintains that this harassment has been triggered by a false and malicious complaint by his wife, whom he has accused of filing several similar baseless criminal complaints in the past in the US and in Singapore.His wife is now resorting to similar tactics in India, it has been alleged.According to the petition, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was executed between Sankaranarayanan and his estranged wife in February. The MoU's terms included that the couple would get a divorce by mutual consent and share joint custody of the child. It was also agreed that the family would reside in Chennai and that the child's travel documents would be secured in a joint locker. He added that his estranged wife came to Chennai along with the child after this MoU and that the child was handed over to him voluntarily on March 3. After that, his wife allegedly filed a false complaint against him. He also claimed that his wife violated the MoU by refusing to deposit their child's travel documents in a joint locker. Additionally, he claimed that she has been refusing to appear before a Chennai court where their divorce case is pending. It is his case that his wife is resorting to extrajudicial tactics to gain leverage in the ongoing divorce and child custody battle. "The police authorities, instead of advising her to approach the competent Family Court, have repeatedly summoned and harassed the Petitioner, thereby causing mental agony, infringing his personal liberty under Article 21 and interfering in matters pending before civil courts," his plea added. .Meanwhile, Sankaranarayanan's wife, Dhivya Sashidhar, has refuted her husband's claims and reportedly said that she has filed the kidnapping complaint only to trace the whereabouts of their son. According to a report by Financial Express, she has alleged that she was forced to sign the February MoU and that their son was forcibly taken away from her custody by her husband's friend, Gokul S.She has also reportedly claimed that she and her child were forcibly brought to India by her husband, citing a property dispute, and that Sankaranarayanan has a criminal history.