Form No.J(2)

IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Civil Appellate Jurisdiction Appellate Side Present : The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya &

The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Uday Kumar FA No. 68 of 2024 +

CAN 2 of 2025 Bodhirupa Mukherjee -vs-

Milinda Lahiri For the appellant : Mr. Partha Pratim Roy, Ms. Sudeshna Basu Thakur, Ms. Upasana Das For the respondent : None.

Heard on : April 17, 2025. Judgment on : April 17, 2025. Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, J.:

1. The present appeal has been preferred by the plaintiff/wife in a suit filed under Section 24 of the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (in short “the Act of 1954”), seeking declaration that the marriage solemnized between the parties on December 1, 2021 and registered on June 7, 2022 is void ab initio and for a direction on the Marriage Registrar, Siliguri, to strike off the registration of the marriage from the Marriage Register with immediate effect.

2. Despite repeated service, none appears to contest the appeal and as such, the same is taken up for hearing ex parte as per our previous direction.

3. The premise of the suit was that the respondent/husband married the appellant herein under Hindu rites and customs on December 1, 2021, which subsequently culminated in a registration under Section 13 of the Act of 1954 on June 7, 2022. The said marriage, it is alleged, was solemnized by the husband practicing deception on the appellant inasmuch the respondent/husband suppressed his subsisting previous marriage with a third party (whose name is deliberately not being disclosed here in order to protect her privacy) on November 8, 2018.

4. It is contended that the prior marriage of the respondent/husband was an admitted position. To prove the same, the present appellant exhibited the plaint of a Matrimonial Suit, bearing Matrimonial Suit No. 3338 of 2019, filed by the respondent before the learned District Judge at Alipore, District- South 24 Parganas, where it was categorically admitted by the husband that he had solemnized a marriage with the defendant therein and sought a decree of divorce.

5. In the said suit, the defendant therein filed her written statement, substantially admitting the factum of such previous marriage.

6. The learned Trial Judge, in the present case, proceeded on the premise that the previous suit for divorce was fixed for ex parte hearing, which according to the learned Trial Judge meant that the said suit was yet to be decided. The learned Trial Judge observed that it was not established that the husband had a prior subsisting marriage, since the previous matrimonial suit was yet to be decided and that before the suit is decided, the learned Court cannot opine that the marriage is void ab initio as her husband had a spouse living at the time of marriage.

7. It is submitted that the culmination of the previous suit had nothing to do with the present suit, since the factum of suppression was borne out by the admitted position as evident from the pleadings of the husband in his previous suit.

8. Upon a careful perusal of the exhibits in the present suit, we find that the plaint of Matrimonial Suit No. 3338 of 2019, filed by the respondent/husband against a third party, was marked as Exhibit P2. From the said document, it is clear that the respondent/husband admitted therein that he had solemnized a marriage with the defendant in the said suit on November 8, 2018 whereas the solemnization of the marriage with the present appellant/wife took place on December 1, 2021. The registration of the marriage between the present parties under Section 13 of the Act of 1954 took place on June 7, 2022, both during subsistence of the said marriage.

9. Notably, the learned Trial Judge, in the impugned judgment, found that even as on the date of the judgment, the previous suit of the husband was pending and the same was fixed for ex parte hearing on March 11, 2024. As such, it was clearly proved by the appellant in the trial court that at least between November 8, 2018, that is, the date of the