The Supreme Court has sent a man and woman to six months’ jail for tying the knot although the woman was still married to her first husband, saying “bigamy” was a “serious offence” and no leniency can be shown.

The court passed the verdict while allowing the appeal filed by the aggrieved first husband, Natrajan Prasad, challenging the Madras High Court decision to sentence his estranged wife Revathi and her second husband “till the rising of the court”.
Though bigamy entails a maximum punishment of up to 10 years, no minimum sentence is prescribed.

Revathi had married again though her divorce from Prasad was pending before a matrimonial court for adjudication. She has a child from her second husband. The trial court in Coimbatore had sentenced the second husband and Revathi to one-year imprisonment on a complaint filed by Prasad alleging bigamy. The district and sessions court, however, acquitted them.

Prasad appealed in the high court, which while reversing the acquittal and restoring the conviction of Revathi and her second husband ordered that they shall be sentenced “till the rising of the court”, meaning they need not go to jail but were to be detained in the high court till the end of the day’s proceedings. Prasad then appealed in the Supreme Court.