No legal bar on Muslim man registering more than one marriage: HC
The Bombay High Court ruled that a Muslim man can register multiple marriages, citing personal law allowing up to four wives, despite state law restrictions.
MUMBAI: The Bombay high court has held that a Muslim man cannot be barred from registering more than one marriage under the state law as their personal laws allow him to have four wives at a time.
The court was hearing a petition filed by a Muslim man from Thane whose plea for registering his third marriage, with an Algerian woman, was rejected by the civic body’s deputy registrar of marriages in February 2023.
The civic official had rejected his application primarily because the Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998, contemplates only a single marriage and, therefore, his third marriage could not be registered under the law.
The high court, however, refused to accept the grounds of refusal, noting that Section 7(1)(a) of the 1998 Act specifically contemplated that the registrar has to ensure the marriage between the parties is performed in accordance with the personal law of the parties. Under Muslim personal law, men can have four wives at a time.
“Once this is the case, we are unable to accept the submission that under the provisions of the Maharashtra Regulation of Marriage Bureaus and Registration of Marriages Act, 1998, only one marriage can be registered even in the case of a Muslim male,” said the division bench of justice BP Colabawalla and justice Somasekhar Sundaresan.
The judges added that if they were to accept this submission, it would effectively mean that the Maharashtra Act overrides or displaces the personal laws of Muslims. “There is absolutely nothing in this Act to indicate that the personal laws of Muslims have been excluded,” the judges said, adding that “the personal laws of the parties are a very important factor that has to be taken into consideration whilst deciding whether a particular marriage ought to be registered or otherwise”.
The judges also noted that the same authority – the deputy registrar of marriages – had registered the Thane resident’s second marriage with a Moroccan woman under the same enactment.
The deputy registrar had also claimed that the couple had not furnished certain documents required to process the application. The petitioner assured the court they would submit all the necessary documents in two weeks.
The court clarified that the deputy registrar would then offer a personal hearing to the applicant on November 19 and decide the plea by passing a reasoned order within 10 days. The bench also directed the foreigners’ regional registration officer not to take any coercive steps to deport the petitioner’s partner, whose passport expired in May, until then.