Marriage is the foundation of any society and in our Indian society context the happiness of family or men and women depends on marriage. In Indian culture where marriage not just the bond between two people but between two families.

But sometimes it becomes very difficult to live in such conditions of a marriage where there is lot of misunderstanding and problems. For separating or break the bond of marriage, most of the couples preferred to take divorce. There is one more procedure to end the marriage that is annulment of marriage.

Annulment is the legal process to end the marriage which declares the marriage null and void. The process of annulment of marriage and dissolution of marriage is very different.

There is a main difference between dissolution of marriage and annulment of marriage which describes dissolution of marriage means that the marriage existed is now over but in annulment of marriage the court makes the married null and void. Any null and void marriage means that the marriage never happened or existed.

On What Grounds a Marriage can be Declared as Null and Void i.e. annulment of marriage

There are basically two types of annulment

1. Civil annulment
2. Religious annulment

If the marriage is based on fraud or misrepresentation:

Civil annulment is the annulment of marriage which is provided in the legal procedure that means it is given only by the court. The reasons or the grounds on which civil annulment take place may vary from state to state. But there are some basics reasons on which annulment of marriage can happen

Incest or the couple is having a blood relation:

That is not allowed even in our Indian culture and religion. Getting married to someone who is in your blood relation i.e. may be your mother, father, sister or brother. If this kind of marriage even completed, it is an illegal marriage and court make the marriage null and void.

If no consummation of the marriage

Sometimes it happens that people get married without telling the partner that he/she is not able to make relations or having sexual intercourse than in that case also court make the make null and void.

If any of the spouse is found guilty in bigamy:

In a situation if any of the spouses is still married legally with any other person at the time of his/her second marriage then in that case court can declare the marriage null and void.

Underage:

Marriage in the teenage or child marriage is very common in Indian society. In a survey by India’s one of the NGO working on child marriage says that still in India more than 25% of marriage takes place underage. The age for marriage for boys’ id 21 years and for girls is 18 years. So if any marriage takes place before that time period or age will be considered as illegal and court can declare it null and void.

Forcefully marriage:

People still remembers that case of Bihar where grooms were kidnapped for the marriage and in some part where girls’ ratio is lower than boys.

Family’s tries to found the person may be man or woman and put pressure on him/her to marriage. These kinds of marriage come under forcefully marriage. A forceful marriage is crime and illegal in the eyes of court and can be easily declared as null and void by the court.

If the marriage take place with the Unsound Mind Conditions

If any of the spouse or both the partners imparted of alcohol or any another kinds of drugs at the time when the wedding or rituals taking place, the most important thing to be noticed is that he/she or both should not be in the condition of understanding the situation then in that case court can termed the marriage as null and void

Religious annulment

In the religious annulment couple may take annulment from Catholic Church too, so that they can remarry again with some other partner.

Dividing the assets and liabilities at the time of annulment of marriage

Most of the time these kinds of marriage filed petition for annulment of married in very early stage of period that is within one or two years of marriage. So there are not so many of the liabilities and debts or assets to be divided within, or not even children are present so that there is no tension for custody of child, maintenance expenditure of child etc.

According to the section 12 of thee Hindu marriage act, a marriage can be declared null and void by the procedure of court for the given situation only. In the time period of this any of the spouses can not marry to any other person.

But there is a loop under the Hindu marriage act which says if the marriage cannot be declares null and void in the case when the consent of any of the partner or both of the partner not taken at the time of marriage.