madurai observing that extramarital affairs have become a social evil and heinous crimes such as murder and kidnapping are on the rise due to such affairs the madras high court has asked the union ministry of family welfare to consider appointing an expert committee to study the reasons for the spurt in extramarital affairs and offer solutions the committee the court observed shall be headed by a retired judge of supreme court or any of the high courts and comprise experts from other relevant fields a division bench of justices n kirubakaran and abdul quddhose issued a series of questions to the government to find out the possible reasons for this ranging from influence of social media and western culture to breaking away from joint family system and suggested setting up family counselling centres in each district the court issued the charter of questions while hearing a habeas corpus petition seeking to quash detention under goondas act of an accused in a murder case while quashing the order the court observed that the murder was the fallout of an illicit relationship and took it upon itself to address the issue and impleaded the union ministry of family welfare in the matter while posing the questions to the authorities the bench also held that these were not the opinions or findings or conclusions of the court and it was for the authorities to respond is it a fact that economic independence of both the spouses is responsible for the spurt in extramarital affairs the bench asked also adding whether better exposure of women who rightly broke restrictive customs and their mingling with third parties in their offices or professions are some of the reasons for clandestine relationships the bench queried whether social networking platforms like facebook twitter and instagram which gives chances for strangers to get connected had paved the way for the rise in clandestine relationships it wondered whether tv mega serialscinema invariably gave ideas to those in clandestine relationships on how to murder kidnap the court also sought statistics on the number of murders due to illicit relationships and the numbers on suicides kidnapping and crimes other than murder in tamil nadu and in the country in the past ten years it asked whether there was a phenomenal rise in the crime numbers over the years wondering whether breaking away from the joint family system was also a reason the court asked whether arranged marriages against the wishes of the bride or groom was a reason for such clandestine relationships it also sought to know whether sexual dysfunctions in spouses and increase in alcoholism among men were reasons and adjourned the matter to the third week of june