Second Wife Not Entitled To Pension When First Alive, Says Gauhati High Court

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court has observed that the second wife of a government employee is not entitled to family tension in the existence of the first wife. The court said that the concept of bigamy does not exist in the Hindu Marriage Act.

The judgement was made recently by a bench comprising of Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi.

The judge observed this while dismissing a plea filed by Pratima Deka, who had seek a family pension claiming to be the wife of one Biren Deka. It is to be noted that Biren was an irrigation department employee who passed away in 2016.

Pratima, who happens to be her second wife, had earlier approached the High Court in 2019 as she did not receive family pension after her husband's death. However, Biren's first wife Golapi Deka contested her claims.

The court, while hearing the petition, noticed that "the parties are Hindu by religion and as per the Hindu Marriage Act, there is no concept of bigamy and rather the same is an offence under the Indian Penal Code and also a ground for divorce".

No other option was left for the court, as a result of which, it decided to reject the petition saying that "a second wife is not entitled to family pension in existence of the first wife. "

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