ARPANA SHARMA Vs. RAJINDER SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE respondent-husband filed a plea under Section 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act for annulment of the marriage. The averments, in the course of the petition, were as under :-

(2.) THE respondent-husband and the appellant-wife had their business premises adjacent to each other. They developed friendly relationship. The appellant- wife requested the respondent-husband to agree to the performance of a mock marriage in order to enable her to wriggle out of the predicament of having to undergo marriage with a boy whom her parents had selected for her and with whom she did not want to enter into a matrimonial alliance. For that purpose, the appellant took respondent-husband and few others to the residence of respondent No. 2 who provided them the bridal wear. The mock marriage was gone into in the presence of respondents No. 3 and 4 who are real sons of respondent No. 2. They had reached the spot with camera in order to able to click the pictures evidencing the Anand Karj ceremony. The parties went their separate ways thereafter. The marriage of respondent-husband was fixed thereafter with another girl. That marriage could not be gone through as girl side people got information that the respondent-husband was already married. The information obtained by them obviously pertained to the mock marriage undergone by him with the appellant-wife. It is thereafter that the appellant-wife lodged an FIR under Section 420 IPC against the respondent- husband with a view to blackmail him. It was under the above circumstances that the respondent-husband applied for the grant of above indicated decree for annulment of the marriage.

(3.) THE petition was ultimately allowed by the learned Trial Court.