On April 30, the Bombay High Court ruled in favour of the wife and nullified a 9-year-old marriage on grounds of non-consummation.
A couple from Kolhapur had been fighting the legal battle from 9 years. The case dates back to 2009 when the woman was 21 and the man was 24. The woman claimed that the man had fraudulently married her by obtaining her signatures on a blank paper by making false promises of getting her a job. While she had sought that the marriage be annulled, the man had opposed it.
She also stated that she never stayed with the respondent husband after the marriage was registered.
“One of the most important objects of marriage is a regularisation of sexual relationship between the two parties, and in the absence of such a relationship, the object of marriage is frustrated. Even a single occurrence of sexual intercourse amounts to consummation of marriage,” said Justice Bhatkar.
Justice Mridula Bhatkar said that due not availability of any evidence of fraud, the husband cannot be held guilty, but struck down the marriage on the grounds that there was no proof that there were sexual relations between the couple.
“In the present case, when the parties did not stay together even for a single day and no evidence is brought by the husband when he claims that there was sexual relationship, then in absence of such evidence… the woman establishes the case of non-consummation of marriage.”
The man claimed that the couple had sexual relations and even the woman had got pregnant but the court pointed that no evidence of the gynaecologist or about the pregnancy test had been furnished.
However, the court granted the stay as the respondent’s counsel sought a stay of 8 weeks on the judgment in order to challenge it before the Supreme Court.
