New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India says marriage annulment granted by church courts has no legal sanctity and those remarrying after obtaining such a decree would commit an offence.
The July 4 observation from the apex court will have far reaching and serious consequences for Catholics in India, who get their marriages annulled by diocesan ecclesiastical tribunals.
A bench of Chief Justice T S Thakur and Justice D Y Chandrachud made this observation while hearing a petition filed by Clarence Pais, a Bengaluru-based Catholic lawyer, who sought legal sanctity for divorce decrees granted by church courts.
Pais had pleaded that marriage and divorce among Catholics were governed by the church and in the absence of its recognition by law, unsuspecting men were facing prosecution for bigamy, reports The Times of India.
Additional solicitor general Neeraj Kishan Kaul said the SC ruling in a case in 1996 had settled the issue in the Molly Joseph versus George Sebastian case.
The court then said that “unless Divorce Act recognizes the jurisdiction, authority or power of ecclesiastical tribunal (sometimes known as church court), any order or decree passed by such tribunal cannot be binding on the courts which have been recognized under the provisions of the Divorce Act to exercise power in respect of granting divorce and adjudicating in respect of matrimonial matters.”
After the bench went through the judgment, it told Pais’s counsel Soli J Sorabjee, “Unless a divorce decree is granted by the competent court, the decrees granted by church court are not valid. Any man who remarries after divorce decree granted by church court will be committing an offence.”
Finding the going tough, Sorabjee said he just wanted to request an adjournment for a detailed hearing later. Though the court was reluctant, it decided to accept the former attorney general’s request. The petitioner had said hundreds of applications seeking dissolution of marriage were pending before church courts.
The petitioner had said, “The Code of Canon Law regulates and provides for the solemnization of marriage by the parish priest of a church, as also declaration of nullity of marriage. The Christian Marriage Act provides for the solemnization of marriage in a Catholic church in accordance with the provisions of the canon law and declaration of its nullity is regulated by the Code of Canon Law.
“If criminal courts, while considering prosecution under IPC Section 494 (bigamy), reject the application of canon law as the personal law of the Catholics, a very serious result will follow and hundreds of spouses under the second marriage will have to face prosecution, jail and fine.
“Canon law is the personal law of the Catholics of India and canon law has to be applied and enforced by a criminal court while deciding a case under Section 494 of the IPC and sanction of prosecution considered for alleged bigamy of a Catholic spouse who has married after obtaining a decree for nullity of the first marriage from the ecclesiastical tribunal.”