Hi I have a long question and would be grateful if it could be answered to my satisfaction. I wish to marry a girl who had an unregistered arranged marriage almost 5 years ago. The boy loved someone else and fled to another country IMMEDIATELY after marriage.
Both the girl and the boy immediately signed a petition of simplified divorce which was arranged by the families as the marriage was new and there were no kids. Neither the girl or the boy appeared in front of the Judge after signing the petition, but the girl’s father told her the divorce had taken place officially. The girl asked her father for the divorce papers and he only gave her a copy of the petition of the simplified divorce.
The father does not approve of our planned marriage and wishes for her to get married to some family friend. Despite a long period of trying to convince him, he is not budging from his stance. We are thus planning to go for a Hindu Ceremony followed by registration but the problem is we don’t have the official or certified copy of the divorce decree. We only have a photocopy of the petition of simplified divorce as mentioned above.
I asked her whether she can go to the court and get a certified copy. She said that her father knows a lot of lawyers in that court and the news might reach her family before the marriage. This might create unnecessary problems prior to our planned wedding.
As you can see, I am now in a dilemma. If we go through with disclosing her divorced status prior to marriage, it will be a long hassle just trying to get registration done without the certified copy of the divorce decree.
Here are my two questions.
1) Is the petition with signed signatures enough as a proof of divorce in the case of mutual consent uncontested simplified divorces?
2) As her previous marriage is unregistered, is it possible that we both go forward with the marriage and registration without disclosing her divorced status? In the absolute worst case scenario that the boy she first married (he is now married to someone else abroad) decides to return, we have the copy of the divorce petition with signatures from both parties.
Would be grateful if this is answered.
