Husband remarried 33 days after UK divorce: bigamy trial stays, case against parents and second wife quashed
Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar hold that a foreign decree on a ground Hindu law does not recognise cannot defeat a Section 494 IPC charge, and quash the case against three co-accused.
On 3 March 2014, in Norfolk, England, Dr N. Sridhar Reddy married for the second time. The Cambridge County Court had made his divorce from his first wife absolute 33 days earlier. That first marriage was a Hindu marriage solemnised in Andhra Pradesh in 2003, and an Indian court had already refused to dissolve it.
On 3 November 2026 the Supreme Court held that the English decree, which rested on irretrievable breakdown of marriage, cannot be treated as ending the first marriage for the purposes of the bigamy charge under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code. The prosecution against him continues.
The same judgment quashed the case against his parents and his second wife. Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra wrote it for a bench that also included Justice Shree Chandrashekhar. It is marked reportable.
Refused in Guntur, granted in Cambridge
The husband married N. Geetha Prasanthi on 18 April 2003 at Sattenapalli. He went to the United Kingdom in February 2005 to pursue a career as a doctor, and she joined him in May 2006.
In August 2007 she returned to her parents’ home in Sattenapalli for the delivery. Their son was born on 4 November 2007. The husband says she never came back despite repeated requests.
He then filed for divorce and custody before the court at Narasaraopet in Guntur district. Both were dismissed. He appealed against the divorce refusal to the High Court and later withdrew that appeal, so the marriage continued to subsist.
On 1 February 2013 he became a British citizen by naturalisation after eight years of residence. On 16 August 2013 he filed for divorce in the Cambridge County Court, and his wife objected to its jurisdiction and competence.
The court ordered a decree nisi on 27 November 2013 and made it absolute on 29 January 2014, on the ground of irretrievable breakdown. Just under five weeks later he married Geetha Inturi in Norfolk.
A complaint, a chargesheet and the High Court
The first wife complained to the Sattenapalli Town Police Station on 1 February 2016, almost two years after the second marriage. She invoked Sections 494 and 120B read with Section 34 of the IPC.
The police chargesheeted the husband and his parents, who were accused Nos. 2 and 3. They dropped the second wife’s name. The magistrate nevertheless took cognizance against her as well, in C.C. No. 571/2018 before the I Additional Junior Civil Judge, Sattenapalli.
All four sought quashing under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed their petitions on 8 July 2019.
It said it could not conclusively decide the validity of a foreign decree at that stage, and that the actual date of the second marriage could be fixed only after trial. The material, it held, was not of the sterling quality needed for quashing. For the parents, it said their role could be determined only at trial.
What each side argued
Senior counsel for the husband argued that he was a British citizen when he remarried, so Section 4 of the IPC kept acts of a foreign citizen abroad outside the Code. He called the Cambridge decree valid and said his wife had conceded to the UK court’s jurisdiction, arguing only forum non conveniens.
The decree, he said, is presumed valid under Section 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure until a competent Indian civil court sets it aside. He also pointed to the gap between the decree and the 2016 complaint as proof of harassment.
The parents said they were not complicit and that the chargesheet attributed no overt act to them. The second wife said she did not know of the first marriage and relied on the decree to say her husband was already divorced.
For the first wife, a marriage solemnised in India under Hindu rites can be dissolved only under Hindu matrimonial law. She said she never submitted unconditionally to the Cambridge court, and that irretrievable breakdown is not a ground under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. She relied on Y. Narasimha Rao v. Y. Venkata Lakshmi and Satya v. Teja Singh.
The twofold question
The bench framed the issue in two parts. The first concerned the foreign decree and what it could do for the husband under Section 494:
“whether the decree of divorce granted by the foreign court on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage is entitled to recognition in India under Section 13 of the CPC” (para 15)
If the answer was no, the Court asked whether the husband could still shelter behind the decree to escape Section 494. The second part was whether the High Court should have exercised its inherent power under Section 482 to quash the case against any of the four.
Section 13 and the comity of nations
The bench described Sections 13 and 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure as an extension of res judicata. A foreign judgment from a court of competent jurisdiction is conclusive between the parties, subject to the exceptions in Section 13, and the policy behind that is comity of nations tempered by justice, equity and good conscience.
The exceptions cover a judgment from a court without competent jurisdiction, one not given on the merits, one founded on an incorrect view of international law or a refusal to recognise Indian law, proceedings opposed to natural justice, fraud, and a claim that breaches Indian law in force.
A foreign judgment that clears Section 13, the bench said, becomes conclusive, and the executing court cannot enquire into its validity. For a foreign matrimonial decree, the test is wider: it must pass Section 13, the law governing the marriage and the jurisdictional principles recognised by the foreign country.
Narasimha Rao and the limping marriage
The Court set out the rule from Y. Narasimha Rao, (1991) 3 SCC 451. The jurisdiction the foreign court assumed, and the grounds on which it granted relief, must accord with the matrimonial law under which the parties married.
There are three exceptions. The respondent may be domiciled or habitually and permanently resident in the foreign forum, with relief granted on a ground available under the governing law. She may voluntarily and effectively submit to the forum and contest a claim based on such a ground. Or she may consent to the relief.
The bench also cited Satya v. Teja Singh, (1975) 1 SCC 120. That judgment warned against mechanically adopting foreign rules of private international law, and described what it called a limping marriage, in which a couple is married in one jurisdiction and divorced in another.
It added a 2026 decision, Kishorekumar Mohan Kale v. Kashmira Kale. There a US decree on irretrievable breakdown was refused recognition for a Hindu marriage, because that ground is not in the Hindu Marriage Act and the husband had only contested jurisdiction by post.
A British passport does not end the marriage
The bench applied these tests to the husband’s own history. He sought divorce in Guntur, failed, withdrew his appeal in the High Court and then went to a foreign court after acquiring British citizenship.
The Cambridge decree rested on irretrievable breakdown, a ground the Hindu law under which the couple married does not recognise. The bench held that it violated Section 13 and fell short of the Narasimha Rao conditions. In its words:
“Such a decree cannot automatically be accorded recognition in India.” (para 22)
From Kale the bench drew a further step. A husband relying on a decree that fails Section 13 cannot say his first marriage stood dissolved in Indian eyes, and so cannot escape the rigours of Section 494. The bench said this could not be permitted.
It also rejected the plea that the first wife had submitted to the English court. Proceedings before that court, it said, prima facie showed she raised an objection to jurisdiction. Her participation could not at this stage be equated with unconditional submission.
Section 4, delay and a continuing offence
The bench did not accept the Section 4 argument in the manner it was put. The husband married the first wife in India under Hindu rites, so even if the second marriage took place abroad, the Section 494 allegation was not diluted.
An inquiry into bigamy, it said, cannot stop at the place of the second marriage and must account for the subsisting matrimonial relationship. The legal consequences of that marriage cannot be defeated by a later change of nationality.
On delay, it held that the FIR could not be interdicted at this stage because bigamy is a continuing offence. In the bench’s words, the offence is committed on every occasion the disobedience or non-compliance occurs.
It then limited its own findings. They were confined to the limited scrutiny permissible at this stage, and nothing in the judgment is a final expression on the merits.
Parents: no overt act, no conspiracy
The chargesheet alleged that the husband’s parents conspired against the first wife over the execution of certain properties in the husband’s favour, and thereby encouraged the second marriage. The bench said this was not sufficient material. Nothing pointed to an overt act or to any agreement to commit bigamy.
Even if they knew of the second marriage, it held, that alone cannot make them liable for conspiracy. It relied on Sivaraman Nair v. State of Kerala, 2026 INSC 412, which in turn followed S. Nitheen v. State of Kerala, (2024) 8 SCC 706.
Those decisions require prima facie evidence of an overt act or omission in the second marriage ceremony. Mere knowledge, without evidence of active participation, facilitation or encouragement, does not make in-laws liable.
Second wife: liability must be separate
The first wife’s complaint said she travelled to the United Kingdom in 2013 and checked the Cambridge electoral directory. She learned that the husband and Geetha Inturi had been living as husband and wife secretly since 2012. When she confronted the second wife, the reply was that she was only a companion living under the same roof.
The investigating agency found too little material against the second wife and closed the case against her. The magistrate rejected the closure by an order of 22 December 2018 and took cognizance without giving any reason.
The bench did not undertake a meticulous examination of the allegations. The question was whether the record showed a prima facie case that she conspired to enter a second marriage knowing the first subsisted. Apart from alleged cohabitation or marriage, it found no overt act showing she took part knowingly, or even knew the first marriage was still alive.
The bench put the principle plainly: “criminal liability must be established qua each accused separately” (para 32). Continuing the case against her would be an abuse of the process of law.
Order
Leave was granted. The Court dismissed the husband’s appeal, Criminal Appeal arising out of S.L.P. (Criminal) No. 7708 of 2019, and sustained the Section 494 proceedings against him.
It allowed the appeals of his parents and his second wife, arising out of S.L.P. (Criminal) Nos. 7812 of 2019 and 7793 of 2019. The criminal proceedings against all three were quashed. The judgment was signed in New Delhi on 3 November 2026.