Annualment of marriage

Marriage is necessarily the basis of society and the foundation of important legal rights and obligations. In Hindu Law, Marriage is treated as a Ceremony. Divorce, however is a sensitive question and Annulment is a very unusual remedy. In our present world, an Annulment tends to be more a creature of religion than of law. Annulments are rarely granted and when they are, very specific circumstances must exist.

A marriage can be declared null and void if certain legal requirements were not met at the time of the marriage. If these legal requirements were not met then the marriage is considered to have never existed in the eyes of the law. This process is called Annulment. It is very different from divorce in that while a divorce dissolves a marriage that has existed, a marriage that is annulled never existed at all. Thus unlike divorce, it is retroactive: an annulled marriage is considered never to have existed.

Procedure for annulment is same as that of Divorce except that the grounds for annulment are different than that of divorce. Once annulment is granted by the Indian Court, status of the parties remains as it was prior to the marriage.

Grounds for Annulment:

The grounds for a marriage annulment may vary according to the different legal jurisdictions, but are generally limited to fraud, bigamy, pregnancy of wife by person other than the husband, impotency prior to the marriage and subsist even at the time of filing the case, blood relationship and mental incompetence including the following:

• Either partner was physically incapable to be married (naturally, persistently unable to have sexual intercourse) at the time of the marriage.
• Concealment (e.g. One of the parties concealed a drug addiction, prior criminal record or having a (STD) sexually transmitted disease).
• Either partner was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the marriage.
• The marriage is prohibited by law due to the relationship between the parties. This is the "prohibited degree of consanguinity", or blood relationship between the parties. The most common legal relationship is 2nd cousins; the legality of such relationship between 1st cousins varies around the world.
• Either partner was too young to be married, or too young without required court or parent consent. (In some cases, such a marriage is still valid if it continues well beyond the younger partner's reaching marriageable age).
• Either partner was mentally incompetent at the time of the marriage.
• Prisoners sentenced to a term of life imprisonment may not marry.
• If the consent to the marriage was based on force or fraud.
• Either partner was already married to someone else at the time of the marriage in question.

An annulment may be granted when a marriage is automatically void under the law for public policy reasons or voidable by one party when certain requisite elements of the marriage contract were not present at the time of the marriage.

DISCLAIMER:This article is for general information purposes only. Always consult a Lawyer before you proceed with your case. Your situation might need a different approach.