2002 (12) TMI 600

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....the 1/3rd share of Sahadeo Manjhi , the properties again will be equally divided in four parts each one of the sharers getting 1/4th share. Defendants 8 to 11 are said to be not entitled to any share on account of the fact that the marriage of the 1st defendant with the 8th defendant was void for the reason that his first wife, Smt. Kamli Devi, was alive and the first marriage still subsisting. The second marriage remarriage, of 1st defendant with the 8th defendant after the coming into force of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 cannot be valid. The learned 2nd Additional Subordinate Judge, Dumka, passed a preliminary decree on 27.9.1983 in Title Suit No.40 of 1975 (3 of 1983) for the 1/4th share of the plaintiff in the suit properties out of th....

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....edules. The appeal was allowed on the above terms and to the extent indicated. Not satisfied, the matter was pursued by the 2nd wife and her children on Second Appeal in S.A. No.315 of 1991 before the High Court of Patna. The said appeal was dismissed on 20.12.1991. Hence, the above appeal by them before this Court. Shri Lakshmi Raman Singh, the learned counsel for the appellants, while reiterating the stand taken before the Courts below, vehemently contended that once the children born out of void and illegal marriage have been specifically safeguarded under Section 16, as amended by the Central Act 68 of 1976, there is no justification to deny them equal treatment on par with the children born of wife in lawful wedlock by countenancing c....

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....n lawful wedlock. If the marriage itself is void on account of contravention of the statutory prescriptions, any child born of such marriage would have the effect, per se, or on being so declared or annulled, as the case may be, of bastardizing the children born of the parties to such marriage. Polygamy, which was permissible and widely prevalent among the Hindus in the past and considered to have evil effects on society, came to be put an end to by the mandate of the Parliament in enacting the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. The legitimate status of the children which depended very much upon the marriage between their parents being valid or void, thus turned on the act of parents over which the innocent child had no hold or control. But, for no ....