Akhila Hebbar

Annulment of Marriage Marriage is defined as a legally and socially sanctioned institution by which there is usually, a state of being husband and wife. Historically, and even in the present, religion has greatly influenced the institution of marriage and its value in the society. Religions explain marriage and its purpose differently and as a result, the manner of its practice and grounds for its customs and beliefs also greatly vary. While Hindus, including Buddhist, Jains, Sikhs, Arya Samaj are governed by the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which is derived from traditional Hindu laws, Muslims have the Sharia law. Furthermore, the Special Marriage Act, 1954, provides for other groups. For the purpose of this article, the author will focus on explaining annulment and its variance from divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. According to the Black's Law dictionary, the term annul essentially means ‘to make void’, a judicial decision or proceeding. Thus, to annul a marriage is to make it inconsequential such that it has no legal force. If a marriage does not satisfy certain legal requirements of a valid marriage given under the Act, the process of annulling a marriage can be carried out to establish its nullity. In simple terms, such a marriage is declared to have never occurred as its legal requirements were never fulfilled. Section 5 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, lays down certain essential conditions of a legal marriage, according to which, there should be valid consent given by persons of marriageable age along with other requirements. Under Section 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, polygamy, marriage within the degrees of a prohibited relationship and marriage between sapindas of each other, instantaneously deems the marriage void. In case of void marriages, there is no need to approach a court to declare the marriage as annulled. It is deemed to be null ipso jure. However, in case of voidable marriages it is on the parties to approach the court and establish its nullity and Section 12 of the Act lays grounds for a voidable marriage. According to this provision, the marriage is voidable if it has not been consummated due to impotency, or there is invalid consent and lastly, if the woman was pregnant with another man’s child. Also, if any of the supposes suffer from mental or venereal diseases, the marriage can be voidable. While these conditions may seem simple and easy for application, there are exceptions and additional requirements to establish nullity of a marriage. If a person despite knowledge of fraud cohabits for more than year, the marriage cannot be declared void. Consent of the petitioner despite such knowledge of fraud is also sufficed to declare the marriage as valid. Moreover, a person seeking to declare their marriage as void must cohabit with their spouse for at least 90 days before such a petition is made in the court. Furthermore, when discussing annulment of marriage, it is often confused with divorce. However, while both annulment and divorce are ways of termination of marriage, they are greatly different from one another. The most basic difference is the fact that annulment essentially declares non-existence of the said marriage while divorce ends an existing marriage such that it no longer legally bounds the parties to such commitment. Additionally, consequences of annulment may also vary from that of a divorce. While a wife may be entitled to maintenance despite court declaring the non-existence of the marriage, heirs of such a marriage do not have a coparcenary right in the property of a Hindu joint family. However, such heirs are not ‘illegitimate’ or bastardised as a result of non-existence of marriage and they have the right to inherit the self acquired property of their father. In conclusion, it can be said that a marriage can be terminated in two ways and annulment essentially serves as an opportunity to cause the least amount of damage in the life of the spouses as the marriage is declared non-existent. However, it must be noted that the slow and long drawn process of acquiring such decrees from the courts cause a significant hurdle in fulfilling the object of the law and no matter the resourceful of the law itself, the procedural obstacles can considerably cause deterrence in its usage.