I want to know whether a husband is bound to maintain his wife to whom he married fraudulently? My husband has solemnised marriage with me by concealing the fact of first marriage. We were working in the same company in Chandigarh. Gradually we started to date each other. Finally we decided to get married.
At the time of marriage I did not know that he was already married. Three years after the marriage I came to know about the truth. Currently I am not working and living separately from my husband, hence, I need financial help from him. Can I claim alimony from him if he has married me without disclosing his first marriage?
Your husband deceived you by hiding the fact that he was already married, making your marriage not legally valid. Therefore, you are not eligible to claim maintenance under the Hindu Marriage Act or the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act. However, the provision of Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (crpc) allows for maintenance to be granted to a wife, legally wedded or deceitfully wedded.
However, Section 125 of the CrPC provides the right to maintenance to wives without considering legal status of marriage. But the Supreme Court has held in cases like Savitaben Somabhai Bhatiya v. State of Gujarat, (2005) 3 SCC 636 and Dwarika Prasad Satpathy v. Bidyut Prava Dixit (1999) 7 SCC 675 that only legally wedded wives are entitled to maintenance under Section 125 CrPC.
The judgments referred to above apply only if the second wife was aware of the first marriage at the time of their marriage. Since you did not know about your husband’s first marriage, you are entitled to claim maintenance from him under Section 125 crpc.
However, since your husband cheated you into the marriage, he cannot benefit from his deceitful actions by denying you maintenance. In the case of Rameshchandra Rampratapji Daga v. Rameshwari Rameshchandra Daga (2005) 2 SCC 33, the Supreme Court held that although a second marriage during subsistence of the first marriage is illegal, it is not immoral. Therefore, a wife in a bigamous marriage is entitled to maintenance.
Hindu marriages have continued to be bigamous despite the enactment of the Hindu Marriage Act in 1955. The Court had commented that though such marriages are illegal as per the provisions of the Act, they are not “immoral” and hence a financially dependent woman cannot be denied maintenance on this ground.
Rameshchandra Rampratapji Daga v. Rameshwari Rameshchandra Daga (2005) 2 SCC 33
The Supreme Court, in the case of Badshah v. Urmila Badshah Godse, (2014) 1 SCC 188, has ruled that a man who marries a second time without informing the lady about his first marriage is obligated to provide alimony for the innocent lady.
Therefore, based on this judgement, your husband is responsible to provide maintenance to you, since he fraudulently married you while concealing the fact of his first marriage. You can apply for maintenance under Section 125 crpc, but make sure to include the following details in your application:
- You were unaware of your husband’s first subsisting marriage.
- Your husband intentionally concealed this information from you and married you, making the marriage invalid.
- You are currently living in difficult circumstances and cannot support yourself financially.
