Church annulments have no civil effect: Supreme Court

New Delhi, January 20, 2017: Canon law and decrees of annulment given by ecclesiastical tribunals or ‘Church Courts’ cannot veto the statutory law of divorce, the Supreme Court said on Thursday.

Thus saying, a Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud disposed of a writ petition filed in 2013 seeking a judicial declaration that annulment passed by ecclesiastical tribunals are valid and binding.

The Supreme Court referred to its 1996 judgment in the case of Molly Joseph versus George Sebastian upholding the binding nature of the Indian Divorce Act of 1869, which governs divorce among Christians.

In Molly’s case, the court said the implication of the Canon law is confined to either theological or ecclesiastical, but has no legal impact on the divorce or annulment of marriage between two persons professing the Christian religion.

“After the Divorce Act came into force, a dissolution or annulment under such personal law cannot have any legal impact as statute has provided a different procedure and a different code for divorce or annulment,” the Supreme Court had held.

In his petition, Pais, a former president of the Catholic Association of Dakshina Kannada in Karnataka, had argued that when courts can recognise dissolution by triple talaq under the Mohammedan personal law, they should also recognise the Canon law as the personal law of Indian Catholics.

The court is presently hearing a row of petitions, including a suo motu one, on the question whether practices of Islamic personal law like triple talaq and polygamy discriminate against Muslim women.

– hindu