A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC.
Find the question and answer of Muslim Law only on Legal Bites. [A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC.]
Question: A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC. [DJS 1991]Find the question and answer of Muslim Law only on Legal Bites. [A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC.]AnswerIf a husband...
Question: A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC. [DJS 1991]
Find the question and answer of Muslim Law only on Legal Bites. [A Mohammedan husband becomes a convert to Christianity. The wife then marries another man before the expiration of the period of iddat. State if she is guilty of bigamy under section 494 IPC.]
Answer
If a husband renounces Islam, the marriage stands automatically dissolved. Thus if his wife remarries even before the expiry of iddat, she will not be guilty of bigamy under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
In Abdul Ghani v. Azizul Huq,(1912) ILR 39 Cal 409, the point of law on which the present application was made is, that, as the Mohammedan Law does not permit marriage between a Mohammedan female and a non-Mohammedan male. In this case, a Muslim man and woman got married. After some time, the husband embraced Christianity but reverted to Islam during the wife's iddat. Before the expiry of the iddat period, however, the wife got married to another man.
The first husband thereupon filed a complaint against the wife, her father, and her second husband under section 494. It was held that no offence had been made. The court observed that the wife's marriage with the first husband became absolutely null at the moment he apostatized, that from the date of his apostasy he was not her husband, and that he could re-marry her during the period of iddat if he reverted to Islam.
Moreover, it is observed that during the period of iddat, a woman cannot marry another husband. In the present case, she is said to have done so. Her second marriage is, therefore, invalid. Her act, therefore, may be considered invalid and sinful, and according to the jurists, it is the duty of the Kazi to separate them and compel her to observe the iddat period.
In respect of the validity of the second marriage, the court remarked that there is no basis for any charge under Section 494 of the IPC against her, regardless of how the parties' uncertain status during the iddat is viewed or how unlawful and void under Mohammedan law the woman's second marriage during the iddat may be. Her second marriage is invalid not because it occurred while her first husband was still alive, but rather due to a special doctrine of Mohammedan law called iddat, with which the Indian Penal Code has nothing to do.
Mayank Shekhar
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