New Delhi: The Delhi High Court, while rejecting a husband’s plea against a family court order, has ruled that if a marriage between members of the Scheduled Tribes (ST) community is solemnised with Hindu rituals, the union falls under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955.
The bench of Justices Anil Kshetrapal and Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar was dealing with an appeal filed by the husband against a family court decision that held his marriage to the respondent spouse was covered under the Hindu Marriage Act.
In his petition, the husband argued that since they belong to the Lambada (Banjara) tribe, to which the Hindu Marriage Act does not apply, the case could not be entertained.
The high court, however, observed that the key question in such cases is how the marriage was solemnised, and not just the community status of the spouse. If Hindu rites are voluntarily followed by parties from tribunal communities, it said, the Hindu Marriage Act applies and its protections become available. Since evidence showed the couple’s wedding featured Hindu ceremonies, including tying of a mangalsutra and rituals around a sacred fire, the court held the wife’s divorce petition under the HMA was maintainable.
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Hindu Marriage Act & ST exception
The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 applies to those who are Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh. It also applies to those who embrace these religions and to individuals who fall under the wide category of “Hindus by usage”. However, Section 2(2) of the Act creates a specific exception. It states that the HMA does not apply to members of Scheduled Tribes unless the central government issues a notification bringing them under the Act.
“Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), nothing contained in this Act shall apply to the members of any Scheduled Tribe within the meaning of clause (25) of Article 366 of the Constitution unless the central government, by notification in the Official Gazette, otherwise directs,” Section 2 (2) of the Act says. This exception exists to protect the distinct customary laws and practices of tribal communities.
In this specific case, the high court referred to its previous judgments and those of the Supreme Court to rule that this exception is not absolute. The Act may apply if members of a Scheduled Tribe choose to solemnise their marriage with Hindu rites and customs.
The court said that where the marriage is treated as a Hindu marriage, protections under the Act become available, citing its own decision in the Satprakash Meena case.
“If members of a tribe voluntarily choose to follow Hindu customs, traditions, and rites, they cannot be kept out of the purview of the provisions of the HMA, 1955. Codified statutes and laws provide for various protections to parties against any unregulated practices from being adopted,” the Delhi HC had said in its 2021 order.
Case at hand
The couple, both members of the Lambada (Banjara) community, got married in 1988 in present-day Telangana. The husband is a government engineer in Andhra Pradesh, while the wife is an IAS officer from the Uttar Pradesh cadre.
When the wife filed for divorce under the Hindu Marriage Act, the husband filed an application seeking rejection of the petition, arguing that the marriage was governed only by Lambada customary law and therefore could not be dissolved under the HMA.
He claimed that the ritual of saptapadi (seven rounds around a sacred fire) was essential to Hindu weddings. The wife challenged the husband’s claims, saying their wedding was solemnised according to Hindu customary rites and rituals. “…my marriage with the Respondent was solemnized according to the Hindu Customary rites and rituals… I was wearing a red dress and ‘bichiya‘ (a toe ring)… which is the symbolic image of a Hindu bride,” the wife stated in her affidavit.
She further stated that the husband “tied a nuptial garland i.e., a ‘mangalsutra‘ around my neck and finally we took the ‘saatpheras‘ in front of the sacred fire”.
‘Adverse inference’, wife’s testimony
The family court decided against the husband based on the supporting material as to the marriage produced by both parties. The wife testified that the marriage photographs and video cassette were in the husband’s possession, which he had failed to produce in court.
This led the family court to draw an “adverse inference” against him, a finding the high court supported. It concluded that the husband withheld the best evidence.
The negative conclusion derived from a party’s failure to present evidence that is within their control or to offer the required justification is known as an adverse inference. This is frequently predicated on the party’s silence or failure to call witnesses.
Later, during cross examination, when shown a marriage photograph, the husband said it had been taken after the marriage, “as they went through Hindu customs”.
But the husband was not able to substantiate his claim, and the high court saw this explanation as an “admission” that Hindu rituals took place, which the it said has “considerable evidentiary significance”.
The high court observed that in a civil case, the standard of proof was of a “preponderance of probability”. This means the court only had to find that the wife’s version was “more likely than not true”. Preponderance of probabilities is a standard used to decide civil cases, which shows that a fact is “more likely than not true”. This is a lower standard of proof than that used in criminal cases of “beyond a reasonable doubt”.
The high court also addressed the husband’s legal claim about saptapadi and said that while Section 7 of the HMA grants statutory recognition to saptapadi, the Act “does not make it mandatory for the validity of every Hindu marriage” but recognises the plurality of customs amongst parties. The bench found the wife’s evidence was credible, while the husband “failed to discharge the burden of proving that the marriage was solemnised exclusively under tribal customary law” and dismissed the appeal.
(Edited by Sampurna Panigrahi)
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