The registration of a marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 can be declared to be of no effect if the registration was in contravention of any of the conditions specified in clauses (a) to (e) of Section 15 of the Act.

Bhaskar Bhattacharya, J.:

This first appeal is at the instance of an applicant under Sections 24/25 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 and is directed against the judgment and decree dated 18th March, 2002 passed by the Additional District Judge, Hooghly, in Matrimonial Suit No.424 of 1995, thereby dismissing the said application by rejecting the prayer of the appellant for declaration that the alleged marriage between the parties was null and void.

2. Being dissatisfied, the appellant has come up with this first appeal.

3. The appellant filed a suit under Sections 24/25 of the Special Marriage Act in the Court of the District Judge, Hooghly which was subsequently transferred to the Court of the Additional District Judge, Hooghly. The case made out by the appellant may be summed up thus:

(a) The appellant was aged 27 years and came from a middle class family. The appellant read up to Class-X and was suffering from various ailments since his birth. He was naturally handicapped and depended on others; as a result, his education did not proceed steadily.

(b) In the year 1990, his two friends, namely, Tarun Mondal and Jaleswar Murmu, encouraged him to join as a train-hawker for selling rice in the Burdwan area. The appellant was under the impression that he would not get any job due to his infirmity of health and meagre education and, thus, started his career as a train-hawker with a capital of Rs.200/-. Such livelihood was not acceptable to the parents of the appellant who had a reputation in the locality because of the fact that the father of the appellant was in railway service. To avoid family problem, the appellant left the shelter of his parents and began to reside in a rented house at Panduah.

(c) In the year 1994, the appellant was introduced to the family of the respondent by his friends, mentioned above. The family of the respondent consisted of her mother, unmarried elder sister and only brother, the respondent being the youngest.

(d) The family of the respondent had a sympathetic mind towards the appellant and the appellant considered them as true well-wishers at the beginning. He never felt that beneath such soft behaviour of the family of the respondent, there was a poisonous object and motivation of wrongful gain.

(e) If the appellant did not visit the family of the respondent for 10 days or for a week, he was inevitably summoned through his friends. Thus, on good faith, the appellant could not avoid the visit of the house of the respondent.

(f) The brother of the respondent, namely, Subir Chakraborty, is a man of desperate nature, a habitual drunk and a man of very bad reputation in locality. The elder sister of the respondent is a strongly built lady having the habit of using blasphemous words every now and then even on a trifling matters. The mother of the respondent posed to the appellant as if she was the only well-wisher of the appellant in the world. Thus, the appellant was under an atmosphere of affection, fear and strain which he could not overcome.

(g) The respondent and her family members pressed the appellant hard to make an amicable compromise with his parents but the appellant used to turn down such advice as he thought that unless he had picked up a good business he would not return to his parents. Initially, the appellant thought that the attempt of the respondent’s family to settle dispute with his parents was an innocent endeavour but later, he understood that such attempt was a motivated one for wrongful gain and they wanted to grab the money and property of the parents of the appellant.

(h) Suddenly, on 23rd August, 1995, the mother of the respondent wanted the appellant to accompany her to Chinsurah for medical treatment. The appellant on good faith and innocently agreed to accompany her to Chinsurah and consequently, the mother of the respondent told him to meet her at Chinsurah bus stand. When the appellant arrived there, some unknown persons and her eldest sister began to threaten hi