Offences relating to marriage

A woman in Vashi marries a man she met through a matrimonial site. Months later she finds he already has a wife in another city. In a second case a man arranges a wedding ceremony that he knows has no legal effect, only to win a woman's trust. In a third, a man takes away another man's wife for illicit purposes. The law reaches all three, but only because it treats marriage as a legal status worth protecting. The exam question is which of these is bigamy, which is a sham ceremony, and which old offence, adultery, has disappeared altogether.

In two minutes

BNS ss.81–84 (old IPC Chapter XX, ss.493–498) punish deceitful cohabitation (s.81), bigamy (s.82), a fraudulent sham marriage ceremony (s.83) and enticing a married woman (s.84); the Sanhita has no adultery offence.

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