BHOPAL/JABALPUR: The MP High Court overturned a family court order ordering the husband of a woman she married after she left her first husband to pay her a monthly maintenance payment of 10,000 rupees after herself revealed that she had not divorced her first husband and was therefore not the second husband’s legally married wife.
Judge Rajendra Kumar Verma reversed the family court’s order, saying that performing marriage rituals with a person did not necessarily confer on a person the status of wife or husband. However, he gave the woman liberty to bring a separate complaint under Section 22 of the DV Act in a court of competent jurisdiction.
Appellant Bhagwan Das said in his petition that a family court in Singrauli ordered him to pay Rs 10,000 to his wife under Section 125 of the CrPC. His wife Panpati, whom he married on March 29, 2017 as part of a mass marriage program organized under “Mukhyamantri Kanyadan Yojana”. She left him on August 11, 2017.
During the hearing he told the court that Panpati was married to Sushil Kumar Gupta back in 2006/07. She left him after five to six years of marriage due to a marital dispute, but did not officially divorce him. Without a divorce, a second marriage is not legal and she is therefore not entitled to alimony, he argued. However, the woman concerned told the court that she left her first husband after the divorce by mutual consent.
However, the court ruled that only the court had the right to grant a divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act. Since she did not divorce her first husband, she is not entitled to maintenance from her second husband as the marriage is illegal. However, the court allowed the woman to bring a separate complaint against the plaintiff under the provisions of Section 22 of the Domestic Violence Act.
Comments are closed.