Second Marriage Without State’s Permission: Supreme Court Upholds Govt Servant’s Dismissal From Service Over Bigamy

The punishment for removal from service was imposed on the petitioner for committing breach of Section 22, paras ‘1’ and ‘2’ of the Civil Services Conduct Rules.

While refusing to interfere with the judgment in appeal, a bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sanjay Kumar observed, “We have ourselves gone through the memo of charges and we are satisfied that the Articles of Charge in substance contains the allegations for breach of the aforesaid Rules against him. We verified from the learned counsel for the petitioner and the State as to whether he had applied for any permission or not and the answer to that query was in the negative”.

Advocate Sunil Pillai appeared for the petitioner and AAG Muhammad Ali Khan appeared for the respondent.

The petitioner was appointed to the post of Constable with the Police Department. He submitted an application for adding the name of one woman (second wife) and a minor child to be added in his service record as nominee.

In the application, the petitioner had mentioned that his marriage took place in the year 2005 with a woman (first wife), but when she did not conceive even after long marital life, she gave her consent to him for performing second marriage. On account of the said consent, he performed second marriage and were blessed with a female child.

The said application was filed by the petitioner before the Authorities was put to enquiry and after receiving the report, statement of the petitioner was also recorded, in which, he admitted that he performed a second marriage without taking prior permission from the State Government.

The disciplinary authority then pursuant to the enquiry passed an order for removal of petitioner from service and the Appellate Authority had affirmed that order. Subsequent to which, his mercy plea was also rejected by the competent authority, thereafter the writ petition was dismissed by a Single Judge bench. The order of the Single Judge was sustained by a Division Bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court.

Before the court, it was thus argued by the petitioner that he sought to point out a flaw in the memo of charges. It was contended that the memo of charges did not allege that the second marriage was contracted by the petitioner without obtaining permission of the State.

It is to be noted that as per Section 22 of the Civil Services Conduct Rules under Bigamous marriages, the provision reads, “(1) No Government servant who has a wife living shall contract another marriage without first obtaining the permission of the Government, notwithstanding that such subsequent marriage is permissible under the personal law for the time being applicable to him. (2) No female Government servant shall marry any person who has a wife living without first obtaining the permission of the Government.”

Appearance:

Petitioner-Sunil Pillai, Adv. Akshat Shrivastava, AOR Pooja Shrivastava, Adv., Satvic Mathur, Adv. and Niteen Sinha, Adv.

Respondent- Muhammad Ali Khan, A.A.G. Vishal Prasad, AOR Omar Hoda, Adv. Eesha Bakshi, Adv.

Cause Title: Mehatru Baddhai @ Mehatru Ram Baddhai v. The State Of Chhattisgarh & Ors.