KABAL SINGH Vs. BALBIR KAUR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) KABAL Singh by means of this criminal miscellaneous under section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure seeks the quashing of the complaint dated 3.4.89, Annexure P1 and the summoning order dated 30.9.89, Annexure P2 passed by the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Faridkot.

(2.) SMT . Balbir Kaur who is the wife of Mohinder Singh, brother of the petitioner, brought a complaint under sections 494/109, Indian Penal Code against Mohinder Singh, Kabal Singh and others. The allegations made by the respondent may be briefly noted.

(3.) LEARNED counsel for the petitioner urges that in order to make out an offence u/s IPC, the complainant had to plead and prove the ceremonies of both the marriages in accordance with some accepted form of marriage and also establish the performance of all the necessary ceremonies of that form of marriage. Since in the complaint, no such allegations have been made, no offence could be made out on the basis of the complaint lodged and the summoning order is bad in law and the complaint is liable to be quashed. This argument of the learned counsel has force and is supported by a judicial pronouncement in Kanwal Ram v. The Himachal Pradesh Administration, AIR 1966 SC 614. Their Lordships held that in a bigamy case, the second marriage as a fact, that is to say, the essential ceremonies constituting it, must be proved. Admission of marriage by the accused is not evidence of it for the purpose of proving marriage in an adultery or bigamy case.