CERTIFICATE COURSE ON HINDU MARRIAGE ACT

ASSIGNMENT

Name : - Piyush Mani

Email ID :- piyushsamhita@gmail.com

Contact no. – 8949662051

ANALYTICAL QUESTIONS [Within 200 Words]

10 Marks Each

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 1. If you had the power to make an amendment to the Hindu Marriage Act what
would it be?

Ans. If I was allowed to make an amendment I would also have prohibited the Sagotra
marriage, that is the marriage within Gotra, Hindu marriage is a sacrament and should
completely be governed according to Shastras and the Shastras mandate for prohibition of the
same, as mostly the people who are of same Gotra are either descendants of same Rishi or are
Guru Bhai because of following the Same Rishi and Shastras mandate that if marriage
happens between Sagotra people it is equivalent to Incest, such woman is to be seen as
mother or sister and the male has to perform Chndrayan vrata. Though I am not prescribing
for the vrata, but this should be prohibited as soon as possible, and if a person has disregard
for Hindu customs he is free to marry under special marriage act, but personal laws should
include the dictates of Shastras.

The need for increase in amount of punishment for Sapinda relation or prohibited
relations, even the science today except that marriage out of Sapinda is necessary because of
genetics degradation, which our rishis recognized much earlier. The imprisonment must be
increased in a manner to deter such nuisances, since our governments are so much interested
in interfering into social customs and bring up changes in the society, they should also think
of the health of the spouses as well.

The recognition of the customs must be made in accordance with Shastras, Hindu does a
marriage because it is Samskar, out of 16 that are to be performed, so not only saptapadi and
Vivah homam, but Panigrahan and Sampradan must also be taken into consideration under
section 7.

If I had the power to make an amendment to the Act then I would decrease the time period
from 7 years to 5 years in which a person can remarry if nothing is heard of his/her spouse
because if the spouse is lost then a lot of hardships have to be met by the other person like
taking care of himself, taking care of children and household. As a result, amendment is
necessary clause 7 of section 13 of Hindu Marriage Act.

2. How can India implement Compulsory registration of marriages?

Ans. Section 8 of Hindu Marriage Act talks about the registration of marriages. However
according to the act, it is not compulsory to do the registration of marriages and is based on
state’s prerogative to amend it or not. To implement compulsory registration of marriages is
the need of the hour looking into the kind of situation that is prevailing, people are
defrauding committing multiple marriages, rather a complete syndicate is working in
this regard where gullible people are being trapped into, it provides a kind of social
security and also helps at times in insurance benefit related claims, in cases where after death
there is no nominee to dead spouse, strict rules need to be made like:

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  The State Legislatures of every state must pass an order that marriages which are not
registered shall be declared void and the laws must be made stringent.
 At present, the fine for not registering the marriage is meagre and as a result there is
no deterrence. The fine amount needs to be increased.
 More number of registration offices should be set up by the government for the
registration of the marriages and the procedure for registration must be relaxed and
made accessible to all so that people do not feel tensed in registering the marriage.
 Awareness programmes should be conducted by the government to make people
aware regarding the importance of registration of marriages and especially rural
people.
 Moreover incentives to the married couples who register the marriage must be
increased so that they are more encouraged.

Through these steps, India can implement compulsory registration of marriages.

3. Has maintenance been provided in a void marriage in any landmark precedent?

If yes, which one? Do you agree with the ratio?

Ans. Yes, maintenance has been provided in a void marriage in case of Rameshchandra
Rampratapji Daga Vs. Rameshwari Rameshchandra Daga. In this case, the wife was
married to other man but due to the demand of dowry, she filed petition for judicial
separation but no decree of divorce was passed. However she got a document of dissolution
of marriage from her community. At the time of her second marriage, she showed the
document to her husband. At the time of divorce, the husband asked the court to declare the
marriage void and no maintenance should be awarded but the Court held that In this case the
supreme court held that the marriage solemnized between respondent and appellant is
considered as null and void because it is against the provision of section 5(i) of the act, the
court did not give validity to the Chhor Chithhi as a complete decree of divorce.

In Spite of that the court granted the permanent maintenance to the wife as gave the wide
interpretation of the section 25 of the act and stated that section 25 enables the court to award
maintenance at the time of passing any type of decree resulting in breach in marriage
relationship and says that any type of decree issued by the court comes under the ambit of
Any type of Decree. It is an enabling provision as it empowers the Court in a matrimonial
case to consider facts and circumstances of the spouse applying and decide whether or not to
grant permanent maintenance.

So, the marriage should be called void because no court ordered the decree of divorce but the
husband had proper information and even after that he married the lady. Therefore the court
held that maintenance will be awarded. I agree to the ratio because the husband had proper
information and then he married the lady. Therefore the maintenance should be given.

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 4. How do you think the process of Divorce can be made easier?

Ans. Section 13 of Hindu Marriage Act talks about the divorce. The process of getting
divorce is very lengthy and tiring. It can be made easier through adopting certain steps and
actions. To make the process easy, there should be mutual consent and understanding
between both the parties. The Section 13(B) of Hindu Marriage Act deals with the concept of
mutual consent. If there will be mutual consent between the parties, then there will be less
time consumed as both the parties will agree quickly. The process can also be made easier by
decreasing the time period of filing the petition for divorce from 1 year of the marriage.
Through these steps the process can be eased to an extent.

5. Is restitution of conjugal rights not a violation of your right to privacy and thus
violating your basic fundamental right? Is it constitutionally valid or not?

Ans. No, Section 9 of Hindu Marriage Act talks about Restitution of conjugal rights.
Restitution of Conjugal Rights does not violates one’s right to preference and privacy which
is the basic fundamental right. Marriages in India are not a private affair, it is a matter that
which includes two families, families are integrated by marriage so it is a social affair,
restitution of Conjugal rights is manner in which courts try to Save the marriage and is the
last resort by the Society induced through the courts to come within the marriage and perform
the Matrimonial obligation, and at last a spouse is entitled to other’s society and if the law
enforces such conjugal duty there is nothing wrong in it.

The question first came up in a case infront of Andhra HC in case of T Sareeta v Vanketesh,
where Section 9 was seen as a breach in right to privacy and Human Dignity, and held to be
violative and hence Unconstitutional, Delhi HC gave a divergent opinion in Harvinder Kaur
V. Harminder Singh, by saying that the fallacy in T Sareeta was that it over relied on Se, so
the matter went in front of Supreme Court in Saroj Rani V. Sudarshan Kr., where J.
Sabhasachi Mukhopadhyay gave an appreciating judgement, He said that both genders are
allowed, so no violation of Art 14, it is not violative of Art 21 as it is meant for Cohabitation
and not for Sexual intercourse and its objective was to be concentrated to Consortium. So
J. Chaudhary viewed section 9 in a flawed manner. J. Mukhopadhyay also emphasized that
introducing Constitutional Law into Family law then the institution of marriage will be
deeply jeopardized.

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