Divorce, Indian style?

I'm amused by a Reuters report of a divorce that - well, wasn't.

An Indian man who took an impersonator to court to get a divorce faces legal action after his real wife found out, lawyers said Friday.

Sanjib Saha presented a woman as his wife in a lower court in the eastern city of Kolkata this month. Both said they sought a mutual divorce, something the court granted immediately.

Saha's real wife was then asked to leave the marital home. She has since appealed the ruling at a higher court, charged her husband with cheating and the original divorce was suspended.

"The case exposed the legal loopholes in our system," Kaushik Chanda, lawyer of Saha's real wife, said.

It reminds me of an earlier report, also from India, where neither husband nor wife knew they'd been divorced - for ten years!

A happily married couple in northern India got the shock of their lives when they learnt they had divorced 10 years ago, the Times of India reported on Tuesday.

Meena Verma, a mother of two children, tried to file a case against her in-laws for violence, only to be told by a court in Haryana state that she had been divorced for a decade.

Her husband Virender told the Times of India his brother, a lawyer, had apparently forged the divorce a decade earlier, when the couple were contemplating making a similar complaint.

"It seems the divorce was doctored to defeat Meena's possible complaint," he said.

The couple filed a petition accusing Virender's brother, Surinder Verma, and four associates, of forgery. Surinder denied the accusation.

One wonders what's next - perhaps filing the divorce papers before the marriage is solemnized?



Peter