### Marriage Under Special Marriage Act During Subsistence of Prior Marriage Is Void Ab Initio Regardless of Personal Law

The petitioner, K. Meenakumari, sought to be impleaded as a legal representative of deceased Defendant No. 2 (Mohammed Rafiq) in a partition suit (O.S. No. 246/2012)

The petitioner claimed to be the second wife of the deceased, having solemnized a marriage under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 (SMA) on 24.04.2008

She admitted in her affidavit that the deceased had a subsisting first marriage with Respondent No. 2 (Fiza Begum) at the time of her marriage

Following a remand from the High Court to conduct an enquiry into the status of the applicants, the Trial Court rejected the petitioner’s impleading application but allowed the application of her daughter

The petitioner challenged this rejection via a writ petition

1. Whether the Trial Court committed a jurisdictional error in rejecting the petitioner’s application for impleadment as a legal representative while permitting the daughter born from the relationship to be brought on record

Section 4(a) of the Special Marriage Act, 1954, which mandates that for a valid marriage, neither party must have a spouse living at the time of solemnization

The SMA is a secular, self-contained code that overrides personal law when parties voluntarily choose to marry under it

A marriage in violation of Section 4(a) is void ab initio and does not confer the legal status of a spouse, referring to the precedent in MD Akhil Alam v. Tumpa Chakravarti (AIR 2026 JAR 12)

The court reasoned that the petitioner’s unequivocal admission in her affidavit—identifying herself as the "second wife" and acknowledging the existence of the first wife—conclusively established a violation of Section 4(a) of the SMA

The court rejected the argument that Mohammedan personal law (which allows polygamy) could validate the marriage, holding that once parties elect to marry under the SMA, they are bound by its strict monogamous requirement regardless of their faith

The marriage was void and conferred no legal status as a "widow"

The court distinguished the status of the child, noting that children of void marriages possess statutory protections and rights to represent the estate, justifying the daughter's impleadment

It held that a person claiming under an admittedly void marriage has no legally recognizable right to represent the estate of the deceased as a legal representative

The court affirmed the Trial Court's order dated 18.08.2025, maintaining the impleadment of the daughter (Defendant No. 2(f)) while upholding the exclusion of the petitioner