Karunanidhi has been getting away with this far too long.
Way back ,in reply to Opposition leader Karuthiruman of Congress in Tamil Nadu Assembly .on being queried about a woman having delivered a child in Chennai and who the father was,Karunanidhi said’ the mother of the child is Rajathi’
And he has been/is being praised for this repartee!
He calls wedded wife Dayalu as ‘Manaivi'(wife) and Kanimozhi‘s mother Rajathi as ‘Thunavi-meaning companion).
He might be the only politician who openly struts between both homes in an official car daily to office.
And this man talks of Kannagi ,Chastity and Tamil Culture.
What an ass Law can be, when some one declares the information officially!.
NEW DELHI: The assets declared by M Karunanidhiof his two wives on Thursday while filing his nomination for the election has exposed the widespread impunity for bigamy even after it has been outlawed 55 years ago for all Indians except Muslims.
Though the second marriage during the lifetime of the first spouse is illegal, many men get away with bigamy because of a loophole in the criminal law. Despite the liability of imprisonment up to seven years, bigamy is not a cognizable offence for which the police can register an FIR, either on their own or on receiving information from others. A violator of Section 494 IPC can be prosecuted only on a complaint filed by the first wife before a court.
In August 2009, the Law Commission of India, headed then by Justice A R Lakshmanan, recommended that this loophole be plugged by making bigamy a cognizable offence.
In any case, whether the first wife exercises the option of initiating criminal proceedings or not, the second wife has no legal status even if her marriage had taken place with the consent of the first wife.
Under the Hindu code, only the first wife is a legal heir of the husband while the second wife is not entitled to any share in the ancestral estate and, if the husband has died without leaving a will, even in his self-acquired property. Once the second marriage is declared null and void, the wife concerned cannot even claim maintenance as a matter of right.
It is therefore ironic that, despite all such legal disabilities, Karunanidhi’s second wife, Rajathi Ammal, with movable assets of Rs 20.83 crores, is actually shown to be wealthier than his first wife, Dayalu Ammal, whose movable assets are apparently worth Rs 15.34 crores.
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