Introduction: -
The marriage tie is planned to be blessed, yet as a rule, it just so happens, somebody is hurt. Attack or hurting an accomplice are normal results of these offenses, consequently Chapter XX of the Indian Penal Code manages marriage-related offenses. These have been assembled into three classifications.
1. Mock Marriage (Section 493)
2. Bigamy (Section 494)
3. Fraud Marriage (Section 496)
4. Adultery (Section 497)
5. Criminal Elopement (Section 498)
1.) Mock Marriage: -
Trickiness in marriage is culpable under Section 493. It pronounces that when a man, regardless of whether wedded or unmarried, bamboozles a lady into turning into his better half misrepresentations affectations and she turns into his mistress, he is at legitimate fault for a wrongdoing. The essential places of this segment are that a man ought to underhandedly allure a lady to have sexual relations with him, and that he ought to likewise persuade her to think that she is his legal spouse.
Since India has such countless religions, the sort of wedding function relies upon the race or religion of the couple. It tends to be promptly different or camouflaged. Assuming an individual who is half English and half Asian by blood professes to be a Mohammedan or Hindu and afterward misleads a Mohammedan or Hindu lady into going through a real wedding function and accordingly lives together with him, he has submitted this offense.
It's significant that segment 496 alludes to a made-up wedding service. The blamed probably gone through the wedding function, which makes it a legitimate marriage, however the denounced should know that the service he is going through is certifiably not a lawful marriage. This part covers both phony relationships and the wrongdoing of polygamy.
2.) Bigamy: -
Area 194 of the IPC depends on segment 57 of the Offense Against the Persons Act, 1861, which oversees polygamy in England. At the point when an individual weds someone else while their better half or spouse is as yet alive, this is known as plural marriage. This part has a wide degree since it relates to both a spouse and a wife. In the point of view of the law, such a marriage is invalid and void, and it is rebuffed by as long as seven years in jail and a fine. The essential parts of this segment are that the charged should as of now have a living mate, and that while the primary marriage is in the works, the mate has gone into another marriage, the two of which are authentic simultaneously.
With the exception of Muslim guys, the statement makes plural marriage an offense for all people living in India, paying little heed to confidence or sex, to be specific Hindus, Christians, and Parsis. On account of Muslims, individual laws take into consideration polygamy for guys, permitting them to have up to four spouses, however monogamy for females is required. A Muslim man wedded under the Special Marriage Act of 1954, then again, would be at legitimate fault for polygamy under area 494.
Area 495 is a more genuine adaptation of the wrongdoing of polygamy. This part springs up when each of the essentials for polygamy are met, however one of the life partners has kept current realities of the denouncer’s first marriage stowed away from the individual to whom the blamed is hitched. This offense is deserving of as long as a decade in prison and a fine.
3.) Fraudulent conduction of wedding function without a legitimate, certified marriage: -
Any individual who goes through the wedding function unscrupulously, clubbed with a bogus thought process, albeit realizing that he isn't authoritatively hitched, faces a prison term of as long as seven years, just as a fine under Section 496.[1]
4.) Adultery: -
Already, Section 497 took into account a five-year jail sentence, with or without a fine, for a sexual individual intercourse with one more man's better half without that man's arrangement or conspiracy. On the off chance that it hadn't been assault, the man would have been accused of infidelity. In the interim, the spouse would not be held obligated as an abettor in such a case.
It's quite important that while this rule has along these lines been decriminalized, it actually fills in as a decent reason for separate.
5.) Criminal Elopement: -
The wrongdoing of criminal elopement is managed under Section 498. The arrangements of area 498 are intended to shield the spouse's privileges, not the wives. The primary elements of this segment are that whoever takes, tempts away, or confines the spouse of one more man from (a) that man (b) any individual who takes care of her for his sake, realizing that she is the wife of another man, such taking, covering, or keeping should be with the aim that she will have illegal intercourse with any individual.
This part manages the taking of one more man's significant other with the goal of having sexual relations with her without her assent. Area 366 of the IPC manages circumstances of capturing or kidnapping of a lady, however this segment likewise considers duplicity executed against her. This segment is intended to protect both the spouse's and her significant other's privileges.
It's entrancing to discover that segment 497 once managed infidelity. Infidelity, as portrayed in this segment, is an attack against the spouse's right of territory over his significant other; it is an attack against the holiness of marriage on the off chance that somebody lays down with one more man's better half, with exclusively the male being rebuffed. In any case, when hearing a request testing Section 497 for being enemies of men and giving ladies influence, a Supreme Court board drove by Chief Justice Dipak Misra named the infidelity regulation "enemies of ladies." because of this case, the Indian punitive code's infidelity law was revoked, and segment 497 can now be summoned as a reason for separate.
6.) Conclusion: -
An examination of all of the previously mentioned marriage offenses uncovers that there is nobody size-fits-all answer for these issues. Criminal law, similar to some other sort of law, is utilized to impact cultural change. In case of marriage offenses, not just the interests of the spouse or wife should be thought of, yet in addition the interests of the family and, somewhat, the more prominent interests of society. The present issue for criminal law is to find some kind of harmony between such contending interests.
[1] https://indiankanoon.org/doc/1912691/
This article is written by Parul Sagar of New Law College, BVP, PUNE.