Court denies man bail after he hid 4 previous marriages from his wife

A Bombay high court has refused pre-arrest bail to a man who was booked for cheating after his wife filed a complaint alleging he had married four times earlier and hid it from her.

“…the offence of cheating is clearly made out apart from other offences. No case for grant of anticipatory bail order is made out,” said Justice Sarang Kotwal in the Jan 17 order.

The wife’s complaint said she came across his profile on a matrimonial site. They met in April 2022 and got married on June 15, 2022. After marriage, he asked her for financial help. She gave him Rs 7 lakh. He also pledged her ornament for a Rs 32 lakh loan.

In Dec, she learnt about his affair with a colleague and in Jan 2023, she returned to her parental home. Thereafter, from her enquiries, she learnt that he had been married four times earlier.

The FIR was lodged on August 7, 2023, by Rasayani police station in Raigad district for criminal breach of trust, cheating, bigamy, cruelty and criminal intimidation.

The man’s advocate said the allegations were false. After his first wife’s death, he had married only the complainant and none else in between. However, the wife’s advocate showed documents of his marriage with other women and birth certificates mentioning his name as the father.

Justice Kotwal took note of the two birth certificates in which the mothers’ names were different but the man’s name was common and shown as the father of both children.

“Thus, there are two birth certificates in the year 2009, in respect of two girls in which mothers were different but the father is the applicant himself,” Justice Kotwal added.

He also noted that there was a proceeding for divorce by mutual consent in 2008, and also another divorce proceeding pending since 2018.

“Thus, there is sufficient material to show that the applicant has cheated many women. All this was concealed from the present first informant (wife),” said Justice Kotwal, rejecting the man’s application