Team Herald
MARGAO: Taking strong exception to Civil Registrars registering dual marriages of the same man, Bailancho Ekvott founder president Auda Viegas on Wednesday demanded that henceforth police verification should be mandatory while registering any marriage to ensure that the male is truly a bachelor or a divorcee.
Briefing media persons, she pointed out that even in the case of a divorce, the person cannot marry for a year as the marriage has to be cancelled first before he or she marries for the second time. However, she said without checking the antecedents of the person, civil registrars have been registering two marriages of the same male with two different women.
She said in one case while the Civil Registrar at Margao registered one marriage, the second one was registered by the Registrar at Ponda. “But what is shocking is that in another case at Dharbandora, the Civil Registrar registered the marriage of the same man twice with two different women,” she said and disclosed that in Dharbandora both the marriages were registered with a gap of only five years.
She pointed out that in any case the women were the victims as the first wife finds herself abandoned with no means to feed her and the children while, the second wife has no claim to any assets of the man she claims to be her husband.
“What is more important is that the conjugal rights of the women are denied and the civil registrar by registering two marriages is abetting in this act,” she said and objected to online application for registering a marriage by asking “What if the person living abroad is already married to someone there?”
“Now, I have written to the Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Minister for Women and Child |Welfare and the Chief Registrar about this issue,” she said.
She said the Civil Registrars do not even publicise the declaration to marry filed by anybody thereby giving an opportunity for a person to have two wives by marrying two different women at different times.
“To protect the women, I feel that verification from the police that the prospective groom is either a bachelor or a divorcee should be made mandatory before registering any marriages henceforth,” she said.
