Second Marriage Without Divorce: Bigamy Under BNS Section 82

If your husband or wife has gone through a second marriage while your marriage is still standing, this is not only a private betrayal. It is a listed offence. Since 1 July 2024 it sits in Section 82 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which replaced the Indian Penal Code. Almost every page you will find online still calls this IPC 494. For anything happening now, that reference is out of date.

Start here, before anything else. Section 82 does not punish every second marriage. It punishes a second marriage that is void because a husband or wife was living at the time. Run your facts against this block first.

That last row is the one people miss. The criminal section borrows its trigger from the law of marriage. If the second marriage is not void for the reason the section names, the section has nothing to attach to.

The heading of Section 82 is Marrying again during lifetime of husband or wife. Sub-section 1 reads:

• Whoever, having a husband or wife living, marries in any case in which such marriage is void by reason of its taking place during the life of such husband or wife, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Read the middle of that sentence slowly. The words are void by reason of its taking place during the life of such husband or wife. The offence is not merely marrying twice. It is marrying again where that very fact makes the new marriage void.

Imprisonment of either description means the court may order simple or rigorous imprisonment.

Section 82 has two limbs, and the gap between them is large. Sub-section 2 reads:

• Whoever commits the offence under sub-section (1) having concealed from the person with whom the subsequent marriage is contracted, the fact of the former marriage, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.

So concealment is not a side detail. It is a separate, heavier charge. The law treats hiding an existing marriage from the person you are about to marry as a distinct wrong done to that person, over and above the wrong done to the first spouse. If your spouse told the new family nothing, the case is not the same case as one where everybody knew.

Two different people are hurt by the same event, and it helps to see that clearly before you speak to a lawyer.

• The first spouse. Your marriage was still subsisting when the second marriage took place. Sub-section 1 exists because of that.
• The second partner, if kept in the dark. Sub-section 2 exists because the concealment is practised on them. Someone who was never told about the earlier marriage has been drawn into a marriage that is void. They are not the wrongdoer in that situation.

Who may set the law in motion, and in which forum, is governed by criminal procedure and by the law that applies to your marriage. That varies, and it is not something to guess from a web page. Get the papers together first, then take advice.

The exception attached to sub-section 1 says:

• This sub-section does not extend to any person whose marriage with such husband or wife has been declared void by a Court of competent jurisdiction, nor to any person who contracts a marriage during the life of a former husband or wife, if such husband or wife, at the time of the subsequent marriage, shall have been continually absent from such person for the space of seven years, and shall not have been heard of by such person as being alive within that time provided the person contracting such subsequent marriage shall, before such marriage takes place, inform the person with whom such marriage is contracted of the real state of facts so far as the same are within his or her knowledge.

In plain terms there are two escapes, and both are narrow.

1. A court has already declared the marriage void. Not a private settlement, not a panchayat paper, not a mutual understanding. A declaration by a court of competent jurisdiction.
2. Seven years of unbroken absence. The spouse must have been continually absent for seven years and not heard of as being alive in that time. This one carries a condition that is easy to overlook: before the second marriage takes place, the person must inform the new partner of the real state of facts so far as they know them. Skip that disclosure and the exception stops helping.

Because Section 82 depends on the second marriage being void, the law governing the marriage decides whether the section applies at all.

For Hindus this chain is clear on the face of the statute. The Hindu Marriage Act 1955 deals with void marriages in Section 11. Section 17 of the same Act is headed Punishment of bigamy, and it provides that a marriage between two Hindus solemnized after the commencement of that Act is void if, at the date of the marriage, either party had a husband or wife living.

The position is not identical across every community in India, and personal law differs. This page is general information, not legal advice on your marriage. Ask a lawyer which law governs your marriage before you rely on any of it.

This is where these matters most often stall, and nobody warns you about it early enough.

Section 82 speaks of a person who marries. So the question is whether a marriage took place, not whether two people are living together, introducing each other as husband and wife, or posting photographs. Living together is not the same thing as marrying, and a case built only on appearances is a weak case.

What actually helps:

• The register entry or certificate for the second marriage, from the authority where it was registered.
• Witnesses who were physically present at the ceremony and can say what was performed.
• Records naming the new spouse, such as service records, nomination forms or official declarations. These do not prove a ceremony by themselves, but they build the picture.
• Evidence about the ceremony itself, because whether a given ceremony creates a valid marriage is decided by the law governing it.

Collect the documents before you make any move. Once people know a complaint is coming, papers become harder to obtain.

A fair amount of what you need sits with a public authority, and an RTI application is a low-cost way to ask for it.

Useful asks, depending on your facts:

• The marriage register entry and certified copies held by the registering authority for the second marriage, giving the date and the names as recorded.
• If the person is a government employee, the family details, nomination or declaration of marital status recorded in the service file with the employing department.
• The file notings or acknowledgement showing when and on what document an entry was made.

Be ready for a partial refusal. Details about another individual can be resisted as third party personal information, and the public authority may ask why disclosure is in the public interest before it releases them. Frame your application narrowly around a record that concerns you and your marriage, and state plainly why you need it.

Draft the application with the AI RTI drafting tool. If the reply is late, evasive or refused, escalate using the first appeal helper. If you want to understand what the officer can and cannot withhold, read the plain text of the RTI Act before you argue.

Section 83 is a different offence. BNS Section 83 carries the heading Marriage ceremony fraudulently gone through without lawful marriage. It is a separate provision and it is not the same as Section 82. Do not treat the two as interchangeable.

Void is not the same as convicted. Whether the second marriage is void is a question of marriage law. Whether anyone is punished is a question of criminal law. They are two tracks. A marriage can be void without any criminal case existing, and the criminal case does not by itself sort out maintenance, custody or property.

Yes, where the second marriage is void because a husband or wife was living at the time. That is exactly what Section 82 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita covers, with a maximum of seven years and fine. If the earlier marriage was concealed from the new partner, the maximum is ten years and fine.

Yes, it changes the exposure. Concealing the former marriage from the person entering the second marriage moves the case into sub-section 2, where the maximum is ten years instead of seven. The concealment is treated as a wrong against the second partner, not only against you.

For conduct today, yes. The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita replaced the Indian Penal Code with effect from 1 July 2024, and the bigamy provision now lives in Section 82. Older matters continue to be dealt with under the law that was in force when the conduct took place, which is why you will still see the old numbering in old material.

The exception covers a spouse who has been continually absent for seven years and has not been heard of as being alive in that time. But it comes with a condition. Before the second marriage takes place, the person marrying again must tell the new partner the real state of facts so far as they know them. Without that disclosure, the exception does not apply.

Where Section 82 applies, the whole point is that the second marriage is void. For Hindus, Section 11 of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 deals with void marriages, and Section 17 provides that a marriage between two Hindus solemnized after the commencement of that Act is void if either party had a husband or wife living at the date of that marriage. Whether the same result follows in your case depends on the law governing your marriage.

1. Fix the dates. Your date of marriage, the date of the second marriage, and whether any court declared anything void in between. Everything under Section 82 turns on these.
2. Get proof of the ceremony, not of the relationship. Register entry, certificate, witnesses. Photographs alone are thin.
3. Check for concealment. If the second partner was never told, that is a materially heavier charge and it should be pleaded from the start.
4. File the RTI applications early, while records are undisturbed.
5. Then take legal advice on which law governs your marriage and how to proceed. Nothing here replaces that.

For a fuller walkthrough of using RTI when a public authority is reluctant, see The RTI Playbook.

This page is general information about the law, current as of the date shown. It is not legal advice, and personal law differs across communities in India. Consult a lawyer about your own situation.