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Showing contexts for: impotency section 12 in Smt. Sheel Wati vs Smt. Ram Nandani on 12 November, 1980Matching Fragments
6. I have in the referring order dated 27th September. 1979, already noticed the distinction between Sections 11 and 12 of the Hindu Marriage Act. The distinction between the two classes of marriages, those declared null and void by Section 11 and those declared voidable by Section 12, is very much there. While under Section 11, either party to a bigamous marriage, or a marriage within the prohibited degrees of relationship or between sapindas, may have it declared null and void, on a petition presented to the District Court against the other party to that marriage, although the petitioner himself/herself may be the party guilty of it; under Section 12, on the other hand, only the party aggrieved by the impotence, unsoundness of mind, force or fraud in obtaining consent, or the pregnancy of the other party at the time of the marriage, can have the marriage annulled by a decree of nullity against the guilty party to the marriage. In both cases the decree passed is a Decree of Nullity. While in cases under Section 11 the decree of nullity declares the marriage to be Null and Void, in cases under Section 12 the decree of Nullity annuls the marriage and renders it Null and Void. Section 16 of the Act, does not make any distinction between the effect of void and voidable marriages on the legitimacy of children born before the passing of the decree of Nullity, or their right to succeed to the property of the parties to such marriages as their legitimate children. Therefore, to say that a marriage declared to be void under Section 11 of the Act cannot be deemed to be in existence for any purpose whatsoever, and that too even before/until a decree of Nullity is passed under the Act, is in my opinion, and 1 say so with great respect to the learned Judges who decided Bajirao's ease (1980 Cri LJ 473) (Bom) not correct, for being against the express scheme of the Act. The truth is that the nullity of a marriage in such circumstances as are prescribed by it, is a creature of the Act, and not only does the Act confer the right to have a marriage solemnised in contravention of the clauses (i), (iv) and (v) of Section 5 declared a nullity, by declaring it to be null and void, it also confers, in positive language, the right to have it so declared, on either party thereto against the other party, by Section 11 of the Act, and further prescribes the procedure and the forum for the same. As already observed by me in the referring order, the rule of interpretation is that, "if an affirmative statute which is introductive of a new law direct a thing to be done in a certain way, that thing shall not, even if there be no negative words, be done in any other way." (Craies on Statute Law: VII Edn., pp. 264-265).