The ruling comes at a time when there are increasing reports of Indians marrying immigrants to facilitate their entry into that country, then separating legally and returning to India to marry again.
A man who lives with his wife abroad, divorces her before a foreign court and then marries again in India cannot be charged with bigamy, the supreme court ruled last week. But the ruling comes at a time when there are increasing reports of Indians marrying immigrants to facilitate their entry into that country, then separating legally and returning to India to marry again. Many Indian women are left to fend for themselves in foreign lands by their husbands and there are increasing lawsuits relating to fraud in marriages by people settled abroad.
One Pashaura Singh married a landed Canadian immigrant, Kamaljeet Kaur, at a Punjab village in May 1997. Kaur returned to Canada and sponsored her husband Pashaura Singh, who left for Canada a year later.
The couple lived together for a few months. But soon strains began appearing and Kaur began living separately in Ontario. Singh applied for divorce and dissolution of marriage before the supreme court of British Columbia, which granted the decree for divorce in 2001.
Singh, who had by then started earning in Canada, returned to Punjab and married another woman. But Kaur’s brother registered a criminal case against Singh, alleging bigamy (Section 494IPC). He also accused him and his other family members of cruelty and dowry abuse.
The trial court and the high court refused to quash the chargesheet against Singh and his family members.
The supreme court came to Singh’s rescue by giving due importance to its equivalent court in Canada, which had dissolved Singh’s first marriage.
Allowing Singh’s appeal, a bench of Justices Tarun Chatterjee and RM Lodha quashed the HC judgment, saying it gravely erred in observing that he married the second time when his first marriage was subsisting.
The divorce certificate issued by supreme court of British Columbia on February 26, 2001, confirms that Singh’s marriage had been legally dissolved. So, it couldn’t be said that he committed bigamy.
The law relating to bigamy, Section 494 IPC, requires an accused to marry a second time while his first marriage was still subsisting and his spouse living.
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