The Allahabad High Court held that a husband who conceals his subsisting first marriage cannot evade maintenance by questioning the validity of the second marriage, ruling that Section 125 CrPC does not permit a person to benefit from his own fraud.
Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has held that a husband who fraudulently conceals a subsisting first marriage to induce a woman into marrying him cannot invoke the invalidity of that second marriage to escape his obligation to maintain her under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, ruling that he may not take advantage of his own wrong.
Justice Garima Prasad dismissed the husband’s revision challenging the maintenance order and partly allowed the wife’s revision seeking enhancement, raising her monthly maintenance from Rs.6,000 to as much as Rs.12,000.
The proceedings arose from an application filed by the wife under Section 125 CrPC on January 29, 2018. The couple had married on December 12, 2016, according to Hindu rites.
It later emerged that the husband had married another woman on February 29, 2008, and that his first marriage was dissolved by a decree of divorce by mutual consent only on November 15, 2017 nearly a year after his second marriage. On the date of his marriage to the second wife, therefore, his earlier marriage was still legally subsisting.
By an order of November 24, 2023, the Principal Judge, Family Court, Mathura, found that the husband had fraudulently concealed his existing marriage, and that the wife had entered the relationship without knowledge of it.
The Family Court rejected the husband’s claim that the marriage had been performed forcibly at gunpoint, and held that the wife was entitled to maintenance despite the strict invalidity of the marriage under personal law, awarding her Rs.6,000 per month. Both sides took the matter to the High Court the husband seeking to set aside the award on the ground that the marriage was void, and the wife seeking enhancement.
For the husband, it was argued that because the second marriage was void owing to the subsistence of the earlier one, the application under Section 125 CrPC was not maintainable and no maintenance could be granted.
For the wife, it was submitted that she had married in good faith, ignorant of the husband’s prior subsisting marriage, and that the Rs.6,000 awarded was grossly inadequate given that the husband is a government servant employed as a Lekhpal, with a monthly income of around Rs.50,000 and an admitted income of roughly ₹35,000 in his financial affidavit.
The High Court rejected the contention that a void marriage automatically disentitles a duped wife from maintenance under Section 125 CrPC. Relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Badshah v. Sou. Urmila Badshah Godse (2014), it held that a husband who suppresses an existing marriage cannot profit from his own fraud.
The Court set out the following observation from that ruling,
“We are dealing with a situation where the marriage between the parties has been proved. However, the petitioner was already married. But he duped the respondent by suppressing the factum of alleged first marriage. On these facts, in our opinion, he cannot be permitted to deny the benefit of maintenance to the respondent, taking advantage of his own wrong…. For the purpose of Section 125 Cr.P.C., respondent No.1 would be treated as the wife of the petitioner.”
The Court also drew on Kamala v. M.R. Mohan Kumar (2019), observing that Section 125 must be given a beneficial and purposive interpretation to prevent the destitution and exploitation of a woman induced into marriage by concealment. On the question of quantum, it relied on Rajnesh v. Neha (2021), emphasising that maintenance must allow the wife to live with dignity and reasonable comfort commensurate with the husband’s status and means.
Given that the husband is a permanent Revenue Department employee with a stable income and periodic increments, the Court found the Rs.6,000 award inadequate in light of the rising cost of living since 2018.
Affirming the Family Court on maintainability, the High Court restructured the maintenance as follows: Rs.10,000 per month from the date of the application on January 29, 2018 until the Family Court’s judgment on November 24, 2023, and Rs.12,000 per month thereafter, payable by the 10th of each succeeding month.
It directed that arrears be computed by the Family Court and cleared within six months in six equal instalments alongside the current payments, and clarified that on default, the Family Court could recover the amount by attaching the husband’s salary or salary account and through other coercive measures. The husband’s revision was dismissed and the wife’s revision partly allowed.
Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure welfare-oriented provision that entitles certain dependants to claim maintenance from a person who has adequate means but neglects or refuses to support them. It applies across religions, independent of personal law, and is designed to provide a speedy, summary remedy against destitution rather than to adjudicate matrimonial rights.
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