According To Allahabad HC, A Muslim Man Cannot Marry Again If He Is Unable To Take Care Of His First Wife And Children
According to the aforesaid prohibition of the Holy Quran, a Muslim man cannot marry another woman if he is unable to care for his wife and children, according to a bench of Justices Surya Prakash Kesarwani and Rajendra Kumar-IV.
Azizurrahman and Hamidunnisha, the couple in question, wed in May 1999 and are parents to four kids. Azizurrahman then wed a second time and had kids with this spouse as well.
He had kept this from his first wife Hamidunnisha, according to the judgment record, and had also not given her any justification for the second marriage. The following year, Hamidunnisha relocated and has since been residing with her 93-year-old father.
Azizurrahman sought restitution of conjugal rights in 2015, asking a family court in Uttar Pradesh to order his first wife to move in with him.
After his appeal was denied by the court in August of this year, he went to the Allahabad HC.
The court cited Surah 4 Ayat 3 of the Quran in its ruling, which states that you should marry two, three, or four women if you are concerned that you might not treat orphans fairly. If you worry that you won’t be able to treat them fairly, only marry one person or choose a spouse from those that your right hands already own. You will be more likely to escape injustice if you do this.
The court explained that although remaining legally wed to his first wife, a Muslim spouse is permitted to wed a second time. However, if he later requests that the court order his first wife to move in with him, the court would not grant it if it believed that doing so would be unfair and unjust.
The bench ruled that if a Muslim man takes a second wife against the wishes of his first wife and then asks the civil court for help forcing the first to live with him, the court will respect the sanctity of the second marriage but will not force the first wife, against her will, to live with the husband under the new circumstances and share his consortium with another woman if the court determines, after reviewing the evidence, that it will be unfair to do so.
Would be against the wife’s rights
The court further noted that the circumstances of the second marriage are important in determining whether the husband’s actions in obtaining a second wife constituted a separate act of cruelty towards the first wife.
It claimed that concealing his second marriage amounted to cruelty toward his first wife. In light of these facts, the court dismissed the appeal, labeling it completely frivolous, and ruled that the first wife could not be forced to join her husband, the plaintiff-appellant, in a lawsuit for the restoration of their conjugal rights.
In reality, the court believed that forcing the woman to live with her husband under such conditions would violate her fundamental rights, which are protected by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.
News Mania Desk
