The ruling came in the case of Pashaura Singh, who had divorced his wife Kamaljeet Kaur, a Canadian citizen, in Canada and remarried in India.

The judgment has clarified a long-standing grey area as till now, the issue of divorces obtained abroad had been open for each court to interpret in its own way in the absence of a clear directive.

But the ruling comes at a time when there are increasing reports of Indians marrying immigrants to facilitate their entry into that country, then separating legally and returning to India to marry again. Many Indian women are left to fend for themselves in foreign lands by their husbands and there are increasing lawsuits relating to fraud in marriages by people settled abroad.
Pashaura Singh was a Punjab resident when he married Kamaljeet in May 1997 and settled down in Canada with her. They lived together for a few months but soon strains began appearing. Kamaljeet began living separately in Ontario. Pashaura Singh applied for divorce and dissolution of marriage before the supreme court of British Columbia, which granted the decree for divorce in 2001.

Pashaura Singh who had settled in Canada by then came back to India to marry another woman before returning to live in Canada. This prompted Kamaljeet’s brother to lodge an FIR in Punjab alleging bigamy and accusing him and his other family members of cruelty and dowry abuse.

The trial court refused to quash the chargesheet against Singh and his family members and the high court upheld the judgment.
Ultimately the Supreme Court came to his rescue quashing the HC judgment, saying it gravely erred in observing that he married the second time when his first marriage was subsisting. The apex court observed that although his first wife claimed she was unaware of the divorce proceedings, the decree had neither been stayed nor set aside.

Source : Leading Indo Canadian Newspaper