Bombay HC Says Daughters Can Question Validity Of Father's Second Marriage

Father 's Second Marriage: The Bombay High Court ruled that daughters can raise questions on the validity of their father's second marriage.

The judgement was given during a plea hearing of a 66-year-old woman whose father had his second marriage a few months after the death of her mother in 2003.

A division bench with Justice RD Dhanuka and Justice VG Bisht gave the judgement. They gave a 43-page long judgement in which the judges said that the family court had "wrongly dismissed" the daughter's case and that she can question the validity of her father's second marriage.

What was the case about?

The 66-year-old woman lost her father in 2015 and when she was going through his documents in 2016, she found that her father's second wife had earlier been married to someone else and had not been divorced even after marrying her father. The woman accused her stepmother of taking "undue advantage of mental ailments, infirmities and unsoundness of mind of her father" which she was allegedly aware of.

The daughter further alleged that her stepmother coerced her father with the intention of siphoning her father's properties. "She even got executed various documents including his Will and several Gift Deeds of various valuable immovable properties and deprived the true legal heirs of their rights," the daughter's lawyer alleged.

After finding about her stepmother, the daughter approached the family court and asked for declaring the marriage between her father and her stepmother null and void. But the stepmother claimed that she had divorced her husband, before marrying the woman's father, earlier in 1984 through a Talaqnama in Urdu.

The stepmother further claimed that her marriage with the woman's father was made legit under the Registrar of Marriage in Mumbai. She claimed of presenting all the documents needed. She alleged that the daughter was raising questions about the marriage because she wanted to take over all the properties. The stepmother also said that the daughter has no proof to challenge the marriage's validity.

According to a rule of the Family Court, only spouses can file such cases against each other but the Bombay High Court quashed the rule and gave the daughter right to raise questions. The Bombay High Court said that since the daughter had only found out about her stepmother after her father's death, she can move to court.

The high court further directed the family court to consider the case and give judgement based on the merits within six months.