After rejecting the petition of a 44-year-old Muslim man, who had challenged a local civic body’s refusal to register his second marriage, the Kerala High Court observed that “religion is secondary and constitutional rights are supreme”.
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The petitioner, who is from Kannur, had already registered his first marriage with the Civil Registration Authority. With the consent of his first wife, he married another woman in 2017. To ensure that the two children born from the second marriage had legitimate property rights, the petitioner and his second wife sought to register their marriage with a local panchayat, but it did not accept their petition. The two then headed to the Supreme Court.
Dismissing the petition, Justice BV Konnikrishnan said on October 31 that the petitioner can remarry if the personal law allows him to do so. “However, if the petitioner wishes to register his second marriage, the law of the land prevails and in such a case, an opportunity to be heard by the first wife is essential. In such cases, religion is secondary and constitutional rights are paramount. In other words, this is essentially the fundamental principle of natural justice. This court cannot ignore the feelings, if any, of the first wife when her husband registers his second marriage in accordance with the law of the land.”
The court said, “I do not believe that the Holy Quran or Islamic law permits an extramarital affair with another woman when his first wife is alive and his first marriage is subsisting, and that too without the knowledge of his first wife. The principles derived from the Holy Quran and Hadith collectively command the principles of justice, fairness and transparency in all marital transactions.”
The court said that the first wife should not be a silent spectator to the registration of the second marriage, even though the Islamic Personal Status Law allows a second marriage in certain cases.
“Let Muslim women also have the opportunity to be heard when their husbands remarry, at least at the stage of registration of the second marriage,” the court stated, adding that if the petitioners file a new application for registration of the second marriage, the marriage registrar must send notice to the man’s first wife. The court said that if it objects to the registration of the second marriage, the petitioners must be notified to go to court to determine the validity of the second marriage.
(Tags for translation) Kerala High Court Second Marriage
