Legal Question in Family Law in India

Re: Marrying outside india w/o a divorce in India

99% of the Marriages in India are not registered and this is specially so among Hindus. This does not however mean that there is no marriage. As you say her divorce proceedings are pending.

When divorce proceedings are already filed and pending in India for over a year, she has to disclose this fact to any other court, in any other country before filing for divorce again. I'm not sure if the second one will be entertained by the second court, when the first one is already pending. Failure to disclose the first pending one would constitute suppression of a material fact and contempt of court where the second divorce application is filed.

You can get married only after the divorce proceedings are over. The Indian Civil Procedure code has been extensively amended to make it obligatory on the courts to finish a litigation with effect from July 2002. You can expect the divorce case to be over soon either way.

N. Ramaswami

Re: Marrying outside india w/o a divorce in India

Dear Client,

The court in India, which has jurisdiction over the place where the woman you want to marry and her husband got married, or where they last resided together before their separation, is competent to grant divorce. The courts in any other country could not in law grant a valid divorce. You say that divorce process is problematic and had been going on for over a year now. What is the problem? On what ground the lady seeks the divorce? I want answers for these questions to advice you to get divorce according to law. The question is wanting in particulars.

Re: Marrying outside india w/o a divorce in India

First of all the women whom you intened to marry

is not obtained a legal divorce. you cannot marry her unless she obtain legal divorce from competant court of law.this is possible if the said woman spend some time in india. for details contact [email protected]

Re: Marrying outside india w/o a divorce in India

Dear Client,

If you wish to marry your girlfriend/fiancee she has to be free to marry in the first place. Because she is still married, albeit in India, she lacks this basic freedom. She can file for divorce in the U.S. even though another divorce is pending in her country of origin as long as she is a "resident" in the U.S. and as long as she discloses to the Court that another divorce proceeding is pending in India. Her spouse would be served with summons and Petition for Dissolution of Marriage, and then he could come over here and argue his case before the Court, if he wishes to do so. Things get a little more complicated when there are children involved and custody is sought. The process in general takes longer than it normally would in the U.S. because of serving of process, but if everything goes well, she could easily see her divorce case over in few months.

Feel free to contact me if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

Tiziana Ventimiglia

Re: Marrying outside india w/o a divorce in India

If your prospective spouse were to come to the U.S. and establish legal residency in one of the

many states with no fault divorce laws, she

could, if there are no children involved, probably file for divorce after about six months.

You may not get married in some other country, whether the U.S. or some place else, until there is a proper final decree of divorce issued by a recognized authority, whether it be Indian or otherwise.