Man finds out wife is married, has 5 kids; HC grants divorce

S Shyam Prasad | NT

Bengaluru: A husband found out that his wife had concealed the fact of her previous marriage and four children even after marrying him.

He immediately approached a Family Court for divorce, which was granted under Section 5(1) and Section 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The High Court, in which the wife filed an appeal, upheld the divorce.

“We do not find any reason to discard the evidence adduced by the respondent/ husband with regard to the fact that the appellant/ wife had a subsisting marriage when she contracted second marriage,” the division bench of Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Anant Ramanath Hegde said in their judgment recently.

Both the parties are from Tumakuru district. They were married in May 2016. The husband found out about the wife’s previous marriage after marriage.

Alleging that she had concealed this face, he approached the Family Court for divorce in February 2017. The wife responded to the Court’s notice but did not file a written statement nor cross examine the husband.

In January 2018, the husband’s petition was allowed and divorce granted. The wife filed an appeal in the HC in 2018 and the judgement on it was delivered recently.

The HC said that the effect of not cross examining the witness is settled in law and the Supreme Court has in the case of Muddasani Venkata Narasaih Vs Muddasani Sarojana “has held that the cross examination is a matter of substance and not of procedure and the effect of non-cross-examination of a witness is that the statement of witness has to be taken to be admitted.”

Citing another SC judgement, the HC said, “When a party to the proceeding does not enter into a witness box and states his/ her case and does not offer himself/ herself for cross-examination by the other side, a presumption would arise that the case set up by him/ her is not correct.”

In the present case, “The appellant/ wife has not even cross-examined the respondent/ husband who in his evidence before the court had stated that the appellant/ wife was already married and had four children from the previous marriage,” the HC noted.

Therefore dismissing the appeal filed by the wife, the HC said.

“The Family Court on the basis of meticulous appreciation of evidence on record has decreed the petition filed by the respondent/ husband, which does not call for any interference in this appeal. The appeal is therefore dismissed,” the HC said dismissing the wife’s appeal. (MFA 1424/2018)