This is not a conviction of the husband: the Court sustained the criminal proceedings at the quashing stage and expressly confined its conclusions to that limited scrutiny, stating they are not a final expression on the merits. The first marriage's status for other purposes, and the outcome of the trial in C.C. No. 571/2018, remain to be decided.
- Case
- N. Sridhar Reddy v. State of A.P.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1191
- Bench
- Prashant Kumar Mishra; Shree Chandrashekhar
- Judgment by
- Prashant Kumar Mishra
- Case numbers
- Criminal Appeal Nos. 5187, 5188 and 5189 of 2026
- Outcome
- Judgment in appeals against the Andhra Pradesh High Court's refusal to quash criminal proceedings (C.C. No. 571/2018): proceedings against the husband under Section 494 IPC sustained; proceedings against his parents and second wife quashed. The husband's trial on the merits remains to be decided.
Foreign divorce does not end a Hindu marriage, so bigamy case stands
The Supreme Court has held that a foreign divorce decree granted on the ground of irretrievable breakdown of marriage, a ground not recognised under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, cannot be treated as ending a Hindu marriage in India, and that a husband cannot rely on such a decree to escape a bigamy prosecution. A bench of Justices Prashant Kumar Mishra and Shree Chandrashekhar dismissed the husband's appeal against the Andhra Pradesh High Court's refusal to quash the proceedings against him under Section 494 of the Indian Penal Code, while quashing the proceedings against his parents and his second wife.
The judgment opens with what it calls matrimonial forum shopping: a husband who failed to dissolve his first marriage in India, then obtained an English divorce, and then remarried. The Court held that the foreign decree did not satisfy Section 13 of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, and therefore could not be conclusive in India.
Two marriages, two countries, one surviving first marriage
Dr. N. Sridhar Reddy married N. Geetha Prasanthi on 18 April 2003 at Sattenapalli, Andhra Pradesh, according to Hindu rites. He went to the United Kingdom in February 2005 to practise as a doctor; she joined him in May 2006 and returned to Sattenapalli in August 2007 for delivery, their son being born on 4 November 2007. His divorce and custody proceedings at Narasaraopet were dismissed, and he withdrew his High Court appeal, so the Hindu marriage subsisted. After eight years' residence he was naturalised as a British citizen on 1 February 2013.
On 16 August 2013 he began divorce proceedings before the Cambridge County Court in England. The first wife objected to that court's jurisdiction and competence. The court ordered a decree nisi on 27 November 2013, and the decree was made absolute on 29 January 2014, dissolving the marriage on the ground of irretrievable breakdown. On 3 March 2014 he married Geetha Inturi at Norfolk in the United Kingdom. On 1 February 2016 the first wife complained to Sattenapalli Town police under Sections 494 and 120B read with Section 34 of the Code; a chargesheet followed against the husband and his parents, and the magistrate also took cognisance against the second wife, whose name the investigators had deleted. The Andhra Pradesh High Court dismissed all three quashing petitions by a common order dated 8 July 2019, challenged in the three appeals before the Supreme Court.
Section 13 and the Narasimha Rao test
The framework lies in Sections 13 and 14 of the Code of Civil Procedure. A foreign judgment is conclusive on matters directly adjudicated between the parties, except where it was not pronounced by a competent court, was not given on the merits, rested on an incorrect view of international law or a refusal to recognise applicable Indian law, was opposed to natural justice, was obtained by fraud, or sustained a claim founded on a breach of Indian law. Section 14 presumes competent jurisdiction, but that presumption can be displaced by proving want of jurisdiction.
For matrimonial decrees, the Court applied its rule in Y. Narasimha Rao v. Y. Venkata Lakshmi: the foreign court's jurisdiction and the ground of relief must accord with the matrimonial law of the marriage, subject to narrow exceptions where the respondent is domiciled or habitually resident in the forum and relief is granted on an available ground, where the respondent voluntarily and effectively submits and contests such a claim, or where the respondent consents. The Court also recalled Satya v. Teja Singh on the limping marriage, where spouses are married in one jurisdiction but treated as divorced in another.
BANTHRY ANALYSISWhy the Cambridge decree fails the test
Applied here, the decree failed. The husband had first approached an Indian court, failed to obtain relief, and withdrew his appeal, then sought a foreign decree after obtaining British citizenship. That decree was made final on 29 January 2014 on irretrievable breakdown, a ground not recognised under the Hindu law of the marriage. The Court held that such a decree, passed in contravention of Indian matrimonial law, violates the Section 13 threshold and the Narasimha Rao conditions, and cannot automatically be recognised in India. Its recent decision in Kishorekumar Mohan Kale v. Kashmira Kale likewise refused recognition to such a decree.
The Court also rejected the argument that the first wife had submitted to the English court's jurisdiction: the foreign proceedings showed she had raised an objection to jurisdiction, so her participation could not at this stage be equated with unconditional submission that would make the decree binding on her. If a decree does not satisfy Section 13, the Court asked, can the husband rely on it to contend that his first marriage stood dissolved in the eyes of Indian matrimonial law and escape Section 494? In its view, this cannot be permitted.
Citizenship and delay do not help the husband
Two further defences failed. The husband argued that, being a British citizen when he remarried abroad, he could not be liable under the Indian Penal Code. The Court rejected this: he was married to the first wife in India under Hindu rites, and a bigamy enquiry cannot be confined to the place of the second marriage but must take into account the subsisting relationship, whose legal consequences a later change of nationality cannot defeat. The complaint's delay, filed in February 2016, also failed at this stage because bigamy is a continuing offence.
The Court confined these conclusions to the limited scrutiny at the quashing stage. Nothing in the judgment is a final expression on the merits, and the husband's trial will test the allegations.
A split outcome: parents and second wife walk free of the case
Criminal liability must be established separately for each accused. Against the husband's parents, Nallapareddy Krishna Reddy and Nallapareddy Vasantha Kumari, the allegations pointed to no overt act conspiring in the bigamy and no agreement to commit it. The chargesheet's claim that they conspired over property transfers to encourage the second marriage was insufficient, and mere awareness of the second marriage cannot make in-laws liable for conspiracy. Under Sivaraman Nair and S. Nitheen, without an overt act, omission or active participation in the second marriage ceremony, in-laws cannot be made liable under Section 494.
The second wife's position was similar. The investigators had found insufficient material against her and deleted her name, but the magistrate rejected that closure and took cognisance against her on 22 December 2018 without assigning any reason. Apart from alleged cohabitation or marriage with the husband, no overt act showed that she knowingly participated in a second marriage while the first subsisted, so continuing the proceedings would be an abuse of process. The proceedings against the parents and the second wife were therefore quashed, while the husband's case under Section 494 was sustained and his appeal dismissed.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: recognition is not automatic
Comity has a threshold. A foreign judgment arrives with a presumption of competent jurisdiction under Section 14, but earns conclusiveness only by passing Section 13, and a matrimonial decree must additionally satisfy the Narasimha Rao rule linking forum and ground to the law of the marriage. Where the ground itself is foreign to that law, as irretrievable breakdown is to the Hindu Marriage Act, the decree cannot dissolve the marriage for Indian purposes. And quashing is accused-specific: the same decree that leaves the husband to face trial cannot drag in relatives and a second spouse without an overt act of their own.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why does a foreign divorce on irretrievable breakdown fail the Section 13 CPC test for a Hindu marriage?
- Why did the husband's British citizenship not shield his second marriage from Section 494?
- Why were the proceedings against the parents and the second wife quashed while the husband's case continues?
