Gwalior: A Gwalior-based married man, who wedded a second woman, a colleague at work, has entered into an agreement, including his two wives, to settle the conflict peacefully.
Through the agreement, the two wives will live in two separate houses, and the man will spend three days with each of them in a week. He will spend the seventh day with the wife of his choice, the agreement goes, PTI reported citing a lawyer of the family court in Gwalior.
However, the lawyer, counsellor and advocate, Harish Diwan, said that the said agreement is legally invalid by Hindu law.
The man, an engineer by profession, married his female colleague in Gurugram during the COVID-19 pandemic while his wife was back home in Gwalior. His first marriage was in 2018, and they lived together for two years. During the Covid, he sent his wife to her parents' home, and he came to Gurugram.
When he did not return till 2020 to take her legally wedded wife, the woman grew suspicious and went to meet him in Gurugram. She found out that he had married another woman, and they had a girl child during the period. The woman fought with the man publicly and protested in the office over his second marriage. She then approached a family court in Gwalior for justice.
Counselling the husband did not work as he refused to leave the second woman. His wife, as well as the second woman, were counselled, but they were not ready to understand. That's when the trio entered into an agreement, where he provided a flat with each for both and agreed to share his salary equally with them.
"This agreement was done between the three of them with mutual consent. Neither the family court nor the councillor has any role in it." "In fact, the three were categorically told that they are Hindu, and as per Hindu law, this agreement between them is illegal. As per the law, a Hindu man cannot marry another woman until he divorced his first wife in a legal manner, but they decided to go ahead with their pact," the lawyer opined.