Husband’s bigamy is emotional domestic violence for wife, court rules

Ahmedabad: A magisterial court here on Friday ordered an insurance company executive to pay Rs 50,000 towards monthly maintenance and Rs 15,000 house rent to his wife and minor daughter. As the man had married the second time in secret, the court held this as “domestic violence in emotional form”.

The woman sought maintenance and compensation under the Domestic Violence Act, accusing her husband of marrying a second time. While ordering maintenance, the court said, "While the act of a husband contracting a second marriage during the subsistence of the first is a grave form of emotional and mental domestic violence and the Respondent No. 1 (husband) has also not explicitly refuted the existence of the second wife, therefore this court is of the considered view that act of domestic violence has been meted upon the Applicant No. 1 (first wife) by the husband in emotional form."

The couple in this case got married in 2011 when they were working in Surat for an insurance company. A daughter was born to them in 2017. A year later, the wife and her daughter had to leave the matrimonial home because the husband married another woman. She filed a criminal complaint against her husband for bigamy and cruelty.

The woman approached the magisterial court here in 2024 through advocate Salim Saiyed and sought maintenance under the DV Act for herself and the daughter. Holding that the second marriage during subsistence of the first marriage is a form of domestic violence, the court fixed Rs 50,000 maintenance for the mother and daughter. The husband submitted that he has been paying maintenance to her under a court order under the provisions of Section 125 of the CrPC. As the woman had not disclosed before the court receiving maintenance amount from the husband, the court refused to order compensation for her.

However, in its order, the court passed a restraining order for the husband and his second wife, "Respondent No. 1 (husband) and Respondent No. 4 (second wife) are hereby strictly prohibited from committing any acts of domestic violence, whether physical, emotional, or economic, against the applicants."