NEW DELHI: Taking advantage of liberal laws abroad to obtain a divorce for a wedding solemnised in India will not automatically lead to dissolution of the marriage under Indian law, Supreme Court has ruled.Viewing negatively the use in a foreign court of grounds for divorce which are not recognised in India, SC said a person who contracts a second marriage on that basis may face prosecution for bigamy as the first marriage continues to subsist under Indian law, reports Amit Anand Choudhary.With many men approaching a foreign court to get a divorce on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage – despite the wife opposing the plea – and thereafter remarrying, SC said the person has to face proceedings even in a case where he had become a citizen of a foreign country. The top court said legal consequences stemm-ing from the subsisting marriage cannot be overridden by a subsequent change in a spouse’s nationality.Irretrievable breakdown of marriage no divorce ground in Indian law: SCThe bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar allowed criminal proceedings for bigamy against a man who remarried after getting a divorce order from a foreign court on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage in proceedings opposed by the wife. The court said that irretrievable breakdown of marriage is not a ground for divorce in Indian law and, therefore, the divorce granted by the foreign court is not valid.“In our view, the foreign divorce decree was passed in contravention of the existing matrimonial law in India and on a ground that is not even recognised statutorily. This violates the legal threshold of Section 13 of the CPC, which every foreign decree has to pass through,” the SC bench said.
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The bench also said that if the foreign decree does not satisfy the requirements of Section 13 of the Civil Procedure Code, then the husband, relying on such a decree, cannot be permitted to contend that his first marriage stood dissolved in the eyes of matrimonial laws of India and, thus, escape the rigours of Section 494 of IPC (marrying again during lifetime of husband or wife).“Now, coming to the argument of the husband that since he was a British citizen when the second marriage with second wife was solemnised and since the second marriage took place outside India, keeping in view the mandate of Section 4 of the IPC, he cannot be held liable. We cannot accept this submission in the manner canvassed as the husband was married to first wife in India under Hindu rites, rituals and customs; thus, even if the second marriage took place outside India, the allegations under Section 494 of the IPC cannot be said to be diluted since enquiry for the offence of bigamy cannot be confined to the place of second marriage but must necessarily take into account the subsisting matrimonial relationship...” the bench said.The court, however, quashed criminal proceedings against the parents and second wife of the man.
