The Bombay High Court recently held that a daughter could 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 woman, after a family court dismissed her plea challenging her father’s second marriage after his demise.
Her mother died in 2003 and her father, a Jain by religion, married a woman from the Dawoodi Bohra community in 2015. She said her father’s second wife was not divorced at the time and that she concealed this from him. After the father’s demise, the lady executed his Will and several Gift Deeds of various valuable immovable properties and deprived her and her siblings of their rights.
The daughter then moved a family court to declare her father’s second marriage null and void. The family court, however, rejected the petition on July 15, 2019.
On March 17, the HC said, “We cannot concur with the reasoning and conclusion arrived at by Family Court which wrongly dismissed the appellant’s (daughter’s) petition as being barred. We are satisfied that the order of the Family Court cannot be sustained and allow the appeal.” It also directed the family court to hear the petition expeditiously.
