Indian wedding held null for duress

Scottish teenager forced to enter arranged marriage against her will, judge rules

News, 25 July 2005

A Scottish woman has succeeded in having her marriage in India, arranged by her mother and entered into while the two were on holiday there, annulled by reason of duress.

June Kaur was 18 when the marriage ceremony took place in September 2001, and had been living with her partner Keith Singh in Edinburgh for about two years. She alleged that during the holiday her mother became determined that she should be married, and although she refused to participate in the process, her mother, without her knowledge, arranged for a marriage to take place between her and Bikramjit Singh. Despite her protests her mother told her there was no option and that if she did not go through with the marriage ceremony her travel documents and passport would be destroyed and she would be left in India. The family exerted pressure, her sister had previously been ostracised for rejecting an arranged marriage and she felt isolated and alone. After the ceremony she refused to have sexual relations with her husband, slept on a couch and returned to her partner in Scotland a week later. She had had no contact with her husband since.

Temporary Judge Roderick Macdonald QC in the Court of Session had a number of legal issues to resolve before he could grant decree in the case. One was whether the action was defended. A document had been received by the court, apparently from the defender, answering some of the allegations and objecting to decree, but unsigned. The defender did not respond to an international recorded delivery letter sent from the court, asking for confirmation that he disputed the action and for payment of the necessary fee, and the judge decided that the action could be treated as one in which no defences had been lodged.

Because the marriage took place in India, Mr Macdonald also had to decide by which law the question of duress should be determined. Preferring the 1971 English case of Szechter to the 1959 Scottish decision Di Rollo, he ruled that Ms Kaur's domicile should fix the relevant law, and applied Scots law.

The case was also one in which evidence supporting Ms Kaur's own statement was needed. Her partner in Edinburgh, who could only speak to what she had told him, could not provide this, but an affidavit from someone in India who had witnessed some of what Ms Kaur's mother had said was judged to be sufficient.

The judge also ruled that the mother's threats were of a serious nature and amounted to threats of immediate danger to the pursuer's liberty in that, if she did not comply with her mother's wishes, her passport would be ripped up and she would be left stranded in India. The test for duress had therefore been met and decree was granted.

Mr Macdonald's opinion can be read at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2005CSOH96.html .