Bombay High Court Rejects Plea For Annulment Of Marriage By Wife Claiming She Was Drugged

A petition for annulment of marriage on grounds of fraud must be presented within a year of discovering such deception, the Bombay High Court said, refusing relief to a woman who claimed she was drugged and abducted to her marriage venue in December 2011. A division bench of Justices KR Shriram and Prithviraj Chavan observed that "no sane man would believe her statement" that an educated independent woman in a city like Mumbai, would remain silent and passive after being drugged with prasad, abducted from her office, married and then brought back to office the following day. "It is crystal clear from the evidence of appellant that except her bare words, there is absolutely no corroboration from any corner either in the form of evidence of her parents, brothers, sisters or employees of Union Bank of India," the court observed while calling the woman's entire story ipse dixitism. The court rubbished allegations of extortion using her debit card in the absence of electronic evidence or of sexual exploitation and unnatural intercourse. "Overall evidence of appellant is improbable, unbelievable and unacceptable. No sane man would believe and accept her testimony as it is nothing but ipsedixitism." The court dismissed the woman's appeal as being devoid of merits and barred by limitation. The woman had approached the High Court after the Family Court refused to annul her marriage. The High Court said that for a marriage to be voidable under Section 12 (1) (c) of the Hindu Marriage Act, the petition for annulment must be presented within a year from the date after the force (to marry) ceased to operate or, the date the fraud had been discovered. Section 12 (1) (c) states that a marriage is voidable if it was performed by force or fraud, the High Court observed. And in the present case, "The alleged fraud or force had indeed ceased to operate, the moment appellant (wife) came to know that she was deceitfully taken to a temple by offering 'prasad' spiked with some drugs and her signatures were obtained on some blank papers." The court said her petition could have been presented for a year since that day – December 29, 2011. It was the woman's case that she knew her husband since 2003. She was 15 back then. He had stalked her at her hometown in Bilaspur, established physical contact with her, taken her obscene pictures and threatened her. But she didn't tell anything to anyone. Then the woman claimed that in 2010 her husband threatened to throw acid on her if she didn't marry him. Finally, when she took up a job in Mumbai, in 2011, the man called her outside her office, abducted her in his car by giving her spiked prasad after which she became powerless and a mute spectator. Pictures were taken and she was made to sign on blank documents, she claimed. The husband wasn't represented in court. However, the HC demolished the woman's theory claim by claim. "We have given various instances and analyased appellant's case…only to expose the unbelievable story of appellant. Even for a moment, we do not go into the truthfulness and veracity of appellant's version as regards it's correctness, we fail to understand as to why she did not do anything and remained silent till 2017, i.e, almost for a period of six years," the bench observed. Case Title: Monika Narendra Sharma Vs. Mukeshkumar Ramnath BhagalCitation: 2022 LiveLaw (Bom) 245Click Here To Read/Download Judgment

Bombay High Court Rejects Plea For Annulment Of Marriage By Wife Claiming She Was Drugged

Sharmeen Hakim

Plea for annulment of marriage by fraud must be presented within a year of discovery of such act, Court said.

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