Bigamy should be punished with more than flea-bite sentence; second marriage should happen only after divorce
India has a low divorce rate compared to other developed countries. A related study says that one out of every 100 marriages in India ends in divorce. Divorce rate is 50% of marriages in America. Divorce rates are lower in rural India than in urban areas. It is also pointed out that widespread urbanization has led to an increase in divorce rates. The divorce rate in Delhi has almost doubled in the last four years. On the other hand, in Bengaluru, the highest number of divorces occur between couples working in the IT sector.
The increase in the number of cases filed for divorce indicates that the divorce rate is increasing year by year in India as well. Maharashtra has the highest divorce rate - 18.7 percent. It is relatively less in Kerala (6.3 percent). The law states that the parties cannot legally remarry unless the divorce case is settled. The Supreme Court recently directed the family courts that divorce cases should not be dragged out and the courts should emphasize on granting divorce at the earliest. In a recent case, the Supreme Court has given a message that marrying while divorce case is pending will result in severe punishment.
The first husband won a favourable judgment by fighting all the way to the Supreme Court against his wife's second marriage while their divorce case was pending. The court sentenced the woman and her second husband to six months imprisonment each. The Supreme Court did not accept the Madras High Court's one-day jail sentence for polygamy. The Supreme Court took the stand that the sentence of imprisonment till the rising of court was too less for bigamy. The court observed that since it is a matter that affects the society, the punishment should be given as it deserves, and the second husband should first surrender to the trial court and serve six months in jail and when he is released after the sentence, the woman should go to jail for six months.
The bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Kumar gave this judgment in view of the fact that the couple has a six-year-old child. The court has also pointed out that such punishment should not be subordinated as it is a judgment in special circumstances. At the same time, the Supreme Court relaxed the High Court order that both of them should pay a fine of Rs 20,000 each and reduced the fine to Rs 2,000 each. It can be assumed that the Supreme Court made this intervention on the view that if light punishment is given to law violations affecting society, such law violations will increase. It would also be good to set a fixed time limit for adjudicating divorce cases along with this.