The family court is getting an increasing number of cases where marriages were conducted on the basis of false claims. In most cases, the spouses were found to be hiding facts — including marital status, the nature of jobs, educational degrees, chronic ailments, etc — before marriage. Later on, the fraud is becoming a ground for divorce. At least three to four cases out of 10 belong to this category.
In one case, Mr Shivkumar and Latika got to know each other through a matrimonial site. Latika has filed a petition for divorce because her husband broke her trust by not providing all the information in his biodata. She claimed: “All I knew was that he was a divorcee. Till recently, I wasn’t aware that he had two children from his first marriage and he is paying maintenance for them.”
In another case, a naval officer married a lady dentist unaware of the fact that she is already married and did not even take a divorce from her first husband. It was only after the naval officer got emails from her first husband that he filed for a divorce.
“Besides hiding marital status, parties also hide chronic ailments like diabetes or psychiatric treatment for clinical depression,” family court advocate Ms Anita Salabh Jain said. “There have also been divorce proceedings in which the husband made false claims about educational qualification (and job profile). Awareness among couple about health, employment, education and family factors are desirable to avoid complications later.”