Misrepresentation Of Marital History Amounts To Suppression Of Facts, Renders Subsequent Marriage Voidable: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court has ruled that a misrepresentation of one's marital history is not a trivial omission but a clear suppression of facts going to the root of a marriage, which renders a subsequent marriage voidable under Section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act.“Its concealment strikes at the very core of free and informed consent, rendering the marriage voidable under Section 12(1)(c) of the HMA,” a division bench comprising Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar said. The Court dismissed a husband's appeal challenging a family court order allowing the plea filed by the wife under Section 12(1)(c) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The marriage was annulled by the family court on the grounds of concealment by the husband of the fact of his prior marriage and discrepancy in his salary figures. The findings were based on an analysis of the online profile of the husband on matrimonial portal “www.shaadi.com”, on the basis of which the wife had responded to his advertised profile. It was the wife's case that by using the word “unmarried”, the husband had canvassed that he was getting married for the first time and that there was a clear difference between the use of the word “unmarried” and “divorced”.Rejecting the husband's plea, the Court said in his profile, he had mentioned that he was “never married”, which is an unambiguous representation understood in ordinary parlance as a categorical statement that the person has never entered into any marital relationship at any time in their life.However, it noted that in his pleadings, the husband had attempted to describe himself merely as “unmarried”. The Court said that the expressions “never married” and “unmarried”, though superficially similar, differ in their scope and implication when viewed in the context of matrimonial consent.“Never married” conveys a lifelong status, free from any prior marital tie, whereas “unmarried” could ambiguously include those who are divorced or widowed. The expression “Never Married” is a declaration that a person has never undergone a marriage and is substantially different from the term “unmarried”, which could lend itself to a possible interpretation of a person having been “Never Married” or of a circumstance at a particular point in time of not being in matrimony with anyone,” the Court said.It added that online matrimonial portals have “Divorced” as one of the options for marital status and that clearly no correction was made to the profile of the husband at any time before the marriage took place. The Court said that no attempt was made on the part of the husband to clarify or reveal the exact status post the marriage. “The Appellant's profile deliberately held out that the Appellant had been “Never Married” and would therefore, constitute “….a material fact or circumstance”, the concealment of which would fall foul of the provisions of the Statute,” it concluded.Title: X v. YCitation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1010Click here to read order

Misrepresentation Of Marital History Amounts To Suppression Of Facts, Renders Subsequent Marriage Voidable: Delhi High Court

Nupur Thapliyal

Tags