Section 498A IPC — Relationship in the Nature of Marriage · 2 September 2026

Sk. Azharuddin v. State of West Bengal: Calcutta High Court Declines to Quash 498A Case Over an Allegedly Concealed Earlier Marriage

High Court at Calcutta · CRR 1457 of 2024; G.R. Case No. 2793 of 2022

The complainant, separated from a previous marriage, said she met the petitioner in 2019, that he represented himself as an unmarried orphan and persuaded her to convert to Islam, and that they underwent a Muslim marriage ceremony in July 2020 and lived together as husband and wife. She alleged she later discovered he was already married with a pregnant wife, and that on confronting him she was assaulted and driven out in May 2022; a chargesheet followed under Sections 420, 498A and 384 IPC. The petitioner sought quashing, arguing no valid marriage existed between them — pointing out that the complainant's own earlier marriage had not yet been dissolved (a mutual-consent divorce was still pending) and that there was no proof of a valid Muslim marriage or conversion, so Section 498A could not apply and the cheating and extortion charges could not survive independently. The State and complainant relied on a landlord's statement that the parties had lived as spouses, and on the Supreme Court's ruling in Dr. Lokesh B.H. v. State of Karnataka that Section 498A can reach a relationship in the nature of marriage.

Justice Uday Kumar dismissed the petition, holding that a formally valid marriage is not an absolute prerequisite for a Section 498A prosecution where the material shows a marriage-like domestic arrangement and a man who projected himself as a husband. The Court declined to resolve at this stage the disputed questions of whether the complainant's earlier marriage was still subsisting or whether a valid Muslim marriage or conversion took place, holding these were matters for trial. The chargesheet and proceedings, including the cheating and extortion charges, were allowed to continue.

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