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England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Chancery Division) Decisions >> Gandhi v Patel & Ors [2001] EWHC Ch 473 (31 July 2001) URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2001/473.html Cite as: [2002] 1 FLR 603, [2001] EWHC Ch 473 |
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CHANCERY DIVISION
B e f o r e :
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Hasmita Jawahar Gandhi |
Claimant |
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- v - |
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(1) Mangal Vijayalaxmi Patel (2) Meera Jadhav (3) Amar Arihant Jawahar Ghandi (4) Ashwini Jawahar Ghandi (5) Digna Jawahar Ghandi (A child by the Official Solicitor – her Litigation friend) (6) Viran Jawahar Ghandi (A child by the official Solicitor - his Litigation friend) |
Defendants |
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E7 8EB.
Mr Thrower of Counsel instructed for the first to fourth Defendants by Meer Care & Desai of
London, W1Y 3HA.
Miss Rich of Counsel instructed by the Official Solicitor for the fifth and sixth Defendants
Hearing dates 29 June, 2-3 July and 20 July 2001.
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Crown Copyright ©
HC 0002062
1. Abbreviations, dramatis personae, etc.
Amar | Amar Gandhi, son of Jawahar and Meera. Third defendant. |
Ashwini | Ashwini Gandhi, daughter of Jawahar and Meera. Fourth defendant. |
Digna | Digna Gandhi, daughter of Jawahar and Hasmita. Fifth defendant, |
Hanid, Mrs | Salma Hanid, a friend of Jawahar. |
Hasmita | Hasmita Gandhi, alternatively Hasmita Chhatralia. The claimant. Mother of Digna and Viran. |
Inheritance Act, The | The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. |
Jawahar | Jawahar Gandhi, the deceased whose estate is in issue in this case. |
Mangal | Mangal Patel. Sister of Jawahar, executrix of his will, and the first defendant. |
Meera | Meera Gandhi, alternatively Meera Jadhav. Wife of Jawahar (separated from 1985), executrix of his will and the second defendant. |
Stone, Mrs | Eleanor Stone, alternatively Eleanor Eke. Former employee and friend of Jawahar. |
Subhash | Subhash Gandhi. Brother of Jawahar. |
Viran | Viran Gandhi. Son of Jawahar and Hasmita. Sixth defendant. |
Overview
The facts
relationship. No-one else who observed them and gave evidence described it in that way. The thrust of the evidence was that it was nearly all downs and not many ups. They quarrelled constantly; Hasmita was hostile to Jawahar's children by Meera, Amar and Ashwini, and did not really want them in the house with her; there were instances of physical aggression between Jawahar and Hasmita, and the witnesses other than Hasmita all said that most of the violence came from Hasmita. The witnesses included Mangal (in my opinion a transparently honest witness), Mrs Hanid, who was a close friend of Jawahar (also in my opinion an impressive and honest witness), Mrs Eleanor Stone (or Eleanor Eke), and Jawahar's eldest child, Amar (who is now in his twenties). Mrs Stone looked after the two older children for some years, and also did some secretarial work for Jawahar. She was a most forceful witness. She painted a picture of Hasmita as an aggressive and violent person who did not look after her `husband' properly, particularly in the last few years when he was in failing health.
.,
The Inheritance Act
(4) For the purposes of this Act any reference to a wife or husband shall be treated as including a reference to a person who in good faith entered into a void marriage with the deceased unless [one of two exceptions, both irrelevant in this case applies].
Hasmita's case is that, by the Hindu ceremony on 10 October 1989, (1) she entered into a void marriage with Jawahar, and (2) she did so in good faith. I shall examine the correctness or otherwise of those two contentions in subsequent parts of this judgment.
husband) would reasonably have expected if the deceased had not died but instead the marriage had been terminated by divorce. This could be important. In the nature of things many applications under the Inheritance Act are made in cases where the deceased was a husband who, at the time of his will, felt alienated from and hostile towards his wife. If he had survived and they had been divorced, my understanding is that the divorce court would not usually have been deterred from making a financial order in favour of the wife on the ground that the husband was hostile towards her. It might, however, be different if the wife's conduct towards her husband had been particularly bad.
Did the Hindu wedding ceremony give rise to a `void marriage'?
accepted as correct: `... it is important to draw a distinction between a void marriage and something which is no marriage at all'. The distinction is obviously important in this case, because if Jawahar and Hasmita were parties, not to a void marriage, but to no marriage at all, Hasmita's claim under the Inheritance Act cannot succeed. In Gereis v Yagoub the couple took part in a Christian ceremony of marriage in a Coptic Orthodox church. Few, if any, of the formal requirements of section 49 of the Marriage Act 1949 were complied with. The judge held that it was a void marriage, not a non-marriage, and granted a decree of nullity, thus opening the door for the wife to claim financial provision. In the present case Mr Pickering relies heavily on Gereis v Yagoub, which he says ought to govern my decision about the nature of the relationship between Jawahar and Hasmita. If the case stood alone I might have accepted the submission, but it does not stand alone, and I need to examine a few others.
case as showing that the Hindu ceremony between Jawahar and Hasmita created a void marriage, not a non-marriage. In my judgment, however, the case will not bear the weight which Mr Pickering seeks to place upon it. It was not concerned at all with the legal effects, or absence of legal effects, of a ceremony which took place in England. There is nothing to indicate that the judge was invited to consider the question of whether the distinction between a void marriage and a non-marriage could have any application or relevance, and he did not address the distinction at all in his judgment. The judgment does not indicate for what purpose the decree of nullity was required. It does, however, give the impression that, by the time that the widely publicised split between Miss Hall and Mr Jagger found its way to the court, the matter had been agreed, and that both parties desired the judge to pronounce the decree of nullity which he did pronounce. I do not derive any assistance from the case for the question which I have to decide here.
The 'in good faith' requirement
Reasonable provision; conduct
Conclusion