@gaurimisha: Exactly what I'm saying, he should have refused to sit with either. That would have been the best thing to do.
I had stopped defending Manav since a few says coz I was myself angry with him. Even when he said yesterday that ok i'll sit in the puja with shravani I felt like banging my head against the wall. But today when he didn't agree to his mother's command of sitting in the pooja with archu, I was happy.
He did the right thing. Its not a case of Manav giving right to Archu to sit with her in the puja... rather its a case of Manav not having the right to do the puja with Arhu coz he was the one who got engaged before divorce. With what face could he have said, come and sit in the puja with me coz you are my wife. If he had said it, I would have thrown one rotten tomato at him.