The Bombay High Court recently held that a daughter can question the legality of her father’s second marriage in court.
A Division Bench of Justices R.D. Dhanuka and V.G. Bisht was hearing an appeal filed by a 66-year-old woman challenging a family court order that held only parties to a marriage could challenge the validity of the marriage.
The woman said after her mother’s death in 2003, her father, a Jain, married a woman from the Dawoodi Bohra community in 2015. In the appeal, the woman said after her father’s death, she realised that his second wife had not finalised her divorce from her previous marriage. She said after her father’s demise, the woman executed his will and gift deeds of various valuable immovable properties, depriving the petitioner and her siblings of their rights.
The daughter then moved the family court, seeking that her father’s second marriage to be declared null and void. The court, however, rejected the petition on July 15, 2019.
On March 17, the high court ruled, “We cannot concur with the reasoning and conclusion arrived at by the Family Court, which wrongly dismissed the appellant’s petition as being barred. We are satisfied that the order of the Family Court cannot be sustained and allowed the appeal.” The court also directed the family court to expedite the hearing on the petition.
