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Ravinder Kaur v. Anil Kumar

Criminal Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Criminal Appeal No. 457 of 2008)Decided 9 Apr 2015
Criminal Appeal No. 457 of 2008
Justice J.S. Khehar · Justice S.A. Bobde

Background

The appellant (wife) and respondent (husband) married in 1991. The husband later obtained an ex-parte divorce decree in 1994 without informing the wife, continued living with her as husband, and then married a second woman; the wife got the ex-parte divorce set aside in 1996, meaning the marriage was treated as having never legally ended. The wife filed criminal complaints, first for rape (discharged/upheld on appeal), then for offences including bigamy and cheating under Sections 493 and 494 IPC, which were dismissed at the lower courts and in a High Court revision, leading to this appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held the second complaint was not barred under Section 300 CrPC because no actual trial (only a discharge) had occurred on the first complaint. On merits, the Court held that since the divorce decree had been set aside, the marriage was deemed to have subsisted throughout, so the husband could not be said to have "deceitfully" made the wife believe in a false marriage, meaning the charge under Section 493 IPC was not made out. However, the Court found the bigamy-related charge under Section 494 IPC survived, and since it is a compoundable offence, and both parties had since remarried and moved on with their lives, the Court permitted the complaint to be compounded with the husband paying Rs. 5,00,000 as compensation to the wife, disposing of the appeal on those terms.

Lesson Learnt

Certain criminal offences, like bigamy under Section 494 IPC, can be legally "compounded" (settled) between the parties with the Court's permission even at the Supreme Court stage, allowing a decades-old family dispute to end through compensation rather than punishment when both sides have moved forward with their lives.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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