PRABIR CHANDRA CHATTERJEE Vs. KAVERI GUHA CHATTERJEE
LAWS(CAL)-1986-2-40
HIGH COURT OF CALCUTTA
Decided on February 05,1986

PRABIR CHANDRA CHATTERJEE Appellant
VERSUS
KAVERI GUHA CHATTERJEE Respondents

JUDGEMENT

- (1.)This revisional application must be rejected, as no jurisdictional issue, which alone can sustain such an application, appears to have been involved. Mr. Somenath Chatterjee, the learned counsel for the petitioner has urged only two grounds in support of the revisional application and both of them appear to us to be without substance.
(2.)The instant application arises out of a matrimonial proceeding initiated by the wife/opposite party by a petition for divorce of her marriage with the husband/petitioner on various grounds like cruelty, adultery etc. The petition for divorce has been labeled as one both under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act and section 27 of the Special Marriage Act and the reason for the same appears to be that the marriage between the parties was frost solemnized according to Hindu rites under the Hindu Marriage Act and Section 27 of the Special Marriage Act and he reason for the same appears to be that the marriage between the parties was first solemnized according to Hindu rites under the Hindu Marriage Act and was thereafter also registered under the provisions of the Special Marriage Act. As will appear from the provisions of Chapter III of the Special marriage Act, a Hindu marriage or, for the mater of that, any duly celebrated marriage, other than one solemnized under the Special Marriage Act, may be registered under that Chapter and on such registration a certificate of marriage shall be entered under section 16 of the Ac in he Marriage Certificate book in certain specified form. And once such entry is made, the marriage, howsoever celebrated earlier, shall thenceforth "be deemed to be a marriage solemnized" under the Special Marriage Act because of the provisions of section 18 of the Act. In with the husband/petitioner, though celebrated and solemnized according to Hindu rites, was thereafter duly registered under chapter III of the Special Marriage Act, the present matrimonial proceeding shall be governed by section 27 of the Special marriage Act and not by Section 13, Hindu Marriage Act. And in that case labeling the petition under section 27 of the Special Marriage Act as one "under section 13, Hindu Marriage Act" also was a useless surplus age, which, at any rate, cannot affect the maintainability or the merit of the petition for divorce, nor the jurisdiction of the court to grant divorce, if any case therefore is eventually made out at the trial.
(3.)Mr. Chatterjee has, however, urged that the Certificate that has been granted in this case under the Special Marriage Act is not one of registration under section 16 of the Act of a marriage already celebrated earlier under Hindu rites, which Certificate should be in the Form specified in the Fifth Schedule of the Act; but it is a Certificate under section 13 of the Act in the Form specified in the Fourth Schedule in respect of a direct solemnization of a marriage under Chapter II of the Special Marriage Act. A marriage Validly solemnized under any other Form can not, so long it continues, be again Solemnized under Chapter II of the Special Marriage Act. It can, as already noted, only be registered under Chapter III of the Special Marriage Act though on such registration, as stated earlier, the marriage shall thereafter be deemed to be solemnized under the Special Marriage Act, solemnization under Chapter II of the Special Marriage Act of a marriage already duly celebrated and Solemnized under another Form. As distinguished from it's subsequent registration under Chapter III, would, as it can not but, be of no legal effect and significance, and in such a case, the earlier marriage duly solemnized in some other form would continue to be valid and effective as before. We do not, as we need not, decide here at this stage as to whether the earlier marriage between the parties was only registered under Chapter III of the Special Marriage Act or whether there was also a purported solemnization of the marriage between the parties under Chapter II of the Act. But we would only add that such purported solemnization, if there were any, would have been entirely an exercise in futility and in that case the earlier marriage celebrated under the Hindu rites would be the only marriage for consideration. All these, we are inclined to think, might have led the wife/opposite party and /or her legal advisers to label the petition as one both under section 13 of the Hindu Marriage Act section 27 of the Special Marriage Act.


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