Man’s consent for marriage taken by fraud, says Bombay HC, Legal News, ET LegalWorld – Legal Firms

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court recently annulled an almost decade-old marriage of a couple, holding that it was “voidable” as consent of the man was obtained by suppression of relevant facts and by fraud.

The HC observed that the woman had contacted the man through her sister’s online profile on a matrimony site. The fact that the contact was initiated by the woman, not the man, and from her sister’s profile, assumes significance in context of her own profile, said the HC. Noting her admission that her son and sister were not present during her marriage, the HC said, “Pertinently, she had not explained the absence of her son at the wedding and the only plausible explanation can be that she had not informed” the man she was marrying about him.

The HC bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sharmila Deshmukh said the case attracted the Hindu Marriage Act’s Section 12 (1) which deals with ‘voidable marriage’. One ground for courts to hold marriages as “void” is if consent of petitioner-husband or wife–is obtained by “force or by fraud” relating to nature of ceremony or any other fact or circumstance concerning the other side.

In October 2014, the man, now 57, had filed for annulment of their November 2013 marriage solemnized under the Hindu Vedic rites. He alleged she had portrayed herself as unmarried though she had a subsisting marriage and a child from it. His petition was transferred to the Thane family court in 2017; last October, it declared the marriage “null and void” with effect from the date of the decree of nullity.

The woman, 56, had earlier this year appealed against the nullity decree. She informed the court she had suppressed nothing and her own profile on the matrimonial website showed her status as ‘divorcee-leaving-in (sic).’ She said she was never married earlier and her son, born in 1999, was from a live-in relationship that had ended 15 years ago.

The HC said, “The dispute centers around two issues-the woman’s prior ‘marriage'” and her suppression of such marriage.

The man had sought annulment also under Section 11 of Hindu Marriage Act which says a marriage is “void” when either party is already married. From the record before family court and submissions before it, HC held there is nothing to prove the woman had a subsisting marriage in 2013.