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Make bigamy a cognisable offence: Law Commission

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi: The Law Commission has recommended amendments to the Hindu Marriage Act (HMA) and other personal laws to the effect that a person whose marriage is governed by such legislation cannot marry again even after changing religion unless the first marriage is dissolved or declared null and void.

In its report submitted to the Union government on Wednesday, the Commission, headed by Justice A.R. Lakshmanan, also suggested that amendments be made in the Criminal Procedure Code to make bigamy a cognisable offence.

“For a long time, married men whose personal law does not allow bigamy have been resorting to the unhealthy and immoral practice of converting to Islam for the sake of contracting a second bigamous marriage under a belief that such conversion enables them to marry again without getting their first marriage dissolved.”

The 227th report pointed out that bigamy had been fully abolished or severely controlled by law in most Muslim countries. Turkey and Tunisia had completely outlawed it, while in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Pakistan and Bangladesh, it had been subjected to administrative or judicial control.

Even in India, the Commission said, “bigamy is not very common among Muslims and men having more than one wife at a time are few and far between. The Muslim society of India in general in fact looks at polygamy with great disfavour and a bigamist is generally looked down upon in and outside his family. Despite this, unfortunately, the religious leaders are not prepared for any legislative reform, and the religious sensitivities have never allowed the state to introduce any reform in this regard.”

The Supreme Court had outlawed this practice in 1995 and reaffirmed it again in 2000. In view of this, the Commission took a suo motu review of the subject for examination of the legal position to suggest changes in family laws.

Full of loopholes

The Commission said: “The law of monogamy under the HMA is indeed full of serious shortcomings and loopholes. Combined with the Act’s provisions relating to marriage rites, it provides in-built devices for easy avoidance of all the consequences of its violation.”

The Commission, accordingly, recommended insertion of Section 17-A after 17 in the HMA to the effect that “if such a marriage is contracted it will be null and void and shall attract application of Sections 494 and 495 of the Indian Penal Code [relating to bigamy]. A similar provision be inserted in the Christian Marriage Act, 1872; the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act, 1936; and the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act [DMMA], 1939.”

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