“The Law Frowns Upon Bastardy”: How Indian Courts Protect Inheritance Rights in Long-Term Unions

Why the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation matters in family property disputes

Property disputes inside a family often begin with a question that has nothing to do with land: was the mother of one set of children a lawfully wedded wife? The presumption of marriage from long cohabitation is what courts turn to when a wedding cannot be proved by direct evidence. In Fulla v. Munna & Ors. (Second Appeal No. 1018 of 1999), decided by Justice Pranay Verma on 3 September 2026 and carrying the neutral citation 2026:MPHC-JBP:67685, the High Court showed how that presumption works on a real record.

The plaintiffs could not prove the customary marriage they had pleaded, yet the decree in their favour stood. The Court found that a shared married life, recognised by the people around the couple, raised a presumption of lawful marriage that the challenger did not displace. Questions about who counts as an heir arise in many disputes before the High Court, as in this analysis of heirs’ rights over disputed land.

The dispute: one father, two households and a contested share in land

According to the plaintiffs, their father first married a woman who has since died, and the appellant was born of that marriage. After her death he married their mother in the Kari form, and the plaintiffs were born of that marriage. They therefore claimed an equal share with the appellant in their father’s land. In the suit the father was defendant no. 1, the appellant defendant no. 2 and the mother defendant no. 3.

A partition with the father’s brothers gave him 3.79 acres, on which a house stands. The appellant sued his father for a half share, and that suit ended in a compromise allotting 1.50 acres and a one third share in the house; the appellant’s written statement says the allotment was to him.

The plaintiffs say they learned of the compromise in July 1991 and were refused their share. As they had not been parties to the earlier suit, they sued for a declaration of a two thirds share and symbolic possession. The father and mother admitted the claim. The appellant contested it, calling the mother an illegitimate wife and the plaintiffs illegitimate children.

1. Trial court. Civil Suit No. 110-A/1991 before the Second Civil Judge Class II, Khurai, decided on 12 February 1997. The suit was decreed in part, after deducting the appellant’s share under the earlier decree.
2. First appeal. Civil Appeal No. 34-A/1998 before the Second Additional District Judge, Sagar, decided on 6 July 1999. The plaintiffs were held entitled to two fifths of their father’s lands and the house, with symbolic possession.
3. Second appeal. No. 1018 of 1999, admitted on 4 July 2000 on three substantial questions of law.
4. High Court. Reserved on 6 August 2026 and pronounced on 3 September 2026. Appeal dismissed, no costs.

The governing law in plain terms

The appeal was admitted on three substantial questions of law. The first asked whether the lower appellate court, having held that the Kari marriage was not proved, could still draw a presumption under Section 114 of the Evidence Act. The second asked whether that failure would weaken the presumption of marriage by long cohabitation. The third asked whether a compromise made by the father in the capacity of karta binds the others unless fraud is shown.

The presumption of marriage from long cohabitation rests on a rule the High Court took from the Supreme Court decision in Chowdamma (dead) v. Venkatappa, which it reproduced. Where a man and a woman have lived together for a long spell as husband and wife, a strong presumption arises that they are married. It can be rebutted, but the person who wants to strip the relationship of its legal footing carries a heavy burden, and the presumption gives way only to evidence that cannot be impeached.

Second appeals of this kind are one part of the work heard at the Jabalpur seat; the wider range of High Court matters is outlined under practice areas before the High Court.

What each side argued

The appellant argued that once the Kari marriage failed, no presumption of marriage could arise, and that cohabitation could only weaken a case pleaded as marriage. He also said the record showed no cohabitation long enough to raise the presumption, and that the land was joint family property, so the father could compromise for everyone, with no fraud alleged by the plaintiffs.

The respondents accepted that the Kari marriage was not proved but said the couple had lived together as husband and wife for a long time and were recognised as such, so the presumption was rightly drawn. They added that the land was the father’s own after a partition with his brother, that nothing showed it to be joint family property, and that a decree passed without the plaintiffs could not bind them.

Why failing to prove the Kari ritual did not defeat the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation

The Court accepted that the plaintiffs’ evidence did not prove marriage in the Kari form. It then reframed the inquiry: did the couple’s long cohabitation as husband and wife allow the law to presume a marriage? It answered from the evidence of both sides.

• The father stated that the mother had lived with him for 26 years as his wife. The Court noted that this was missing from the plaint but had been supplied by the evidence.
• Two witnesses for the plaintiffs said the couple had lived together for a long time as husband and wife.
• The appellant, who was very young when the cohabitation began, himself said his father had kept the mother as his wife.
• It was admitted that the plaintiffs were born of that cohabitation, which began after the death of the father’s first wife.
• Nothing on record showed that the mother lived with the father as a kept woman, or that any legal impediment stood in the way of marriage.
• The father and mother admitted the claim, which the Court read as showing no animosity between the plaintiffs and their father.

The Court observed that, apart from the appellant, nobody in the village refused to treat the couple as husband and wife, and that the presumption would always lean towards legitimacy of marriage rather than its illegitimacy. In the earlier suit the appellant had called the mother an illegal wife, yet he led no evidence to show that she was not the wife. The Court therefore held that the plaintiffs had satisfactorily proved her to be the lawfully wedded wife, and it declined to interfere with that finding at the second-appeal stage.

How courts lean towards legitimacy: the precedents behind the presumption

The High Court reproduced a passage from Chowdamma (dead) v. Venkatappa, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 1814, which gathers the earlier authority. In Badri Prasad v. Deputy Director of Consolidation, the Supreme Court recognised a strong presumption of wedlock after a long life together, with a heavy burden on whoever seeks to deprive the relationship of legal origin. The Privy Council decisions in Andrahennedige Dinohamy v. Wijetunge Liyanapatabendige Balahamy and Mohabbat Ali Khan v. Mahomed Ibrahim Khan likewise presume marriage, not concubinage, where a man and woman are proved to have lived together for years.

Read together, these authorities show a consistent judicial preference: once the facts supporting the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation are shown, courts start from the assumption that the union is lawful and ask the challenger to prove otherwise. That policy leaning towards legitimacy is what gives the case its wider interest for families who cannot produce a marriage certificate or proof of a ritual.

The appellant relied on Raja Gounder v. M. Sengodan, (2024) 12 SCC 350. The High Court held that it did not apply, because it concerned the legitimacy of children born of an invalid marriage, not the legitimacy of the marriage itself. The status of a child raises its own evidentiary questions, which this site has looked at in the context of legitimacy of a child and DNA testing.

The Court’s answers, point by point

The compromise decree: why the earlier suit did not bind the plaintiffs

The earlier suit was between the appellant and his father. The plaintiffs were not parties to it, so the judgment and decree in that suit could not bind them, and the Court added that the compromise would have no effect on the merits of the present case.

How an earlier decree operates depends on who stood before the court. Parties to earlier litigation can be held to what they admitted there, a point examined in this site’s analysis of permanent injunction without declaration of title. People who were never parties stand on different ground, which was the plaintiffs’ position. The first appellate court’s decree for a two fifths share, with symbolic possession, therefore stands affirmed.

What the Court left open

The judgment is short and rests on its own record. Several questions that a reader might expect it to settle about the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation are not decided.

• How long is long. The Court set no minimum period. The record had the father’s statement of 26 years, and the Court spoke only of a long time.
• The Kari custom. Because marriage in that form was not proved, the Court did not examine what the custom requires.
• Pleading gaps. The Court noted that the period of cohabitation was absent from the plaint and supplied by evidence, but did not discuss whether that could matter elsewhere.
• The nature of the land. Whether it was joint family property or the father’s own was not decided, because the appellant had not set up the joint family case.
• The share. The plaintiffs sought two thirds and the first appellate court held them entitled to two fifths. This judgment affirms that decree without working out the computation.
• A contested record. The appellant led no evidence that the mother was not the wife. A case where the challenger produces real evidence, such as a legal impediment to marriage, would be tested on its own facts.

Records to assemble when a long-term union is questioned

Drawing on the evidence the Court relied on, the following material is worth assembling by anyone who must rely on the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation, or who must resist it:

• Statements and pleadings of the couple on how long, and in what capacity, they lived together and when the cohabitation began.
• Evidence of people who knew the couple as husband and wife, since village recognition counted here.
• Earlier pleadings and evidence in which the opposing side described the relationship, because the appellant’s own words were used against his position.
• Proof of when any earlier marriage ended, and any record bearing on a legal impediment to marriage.
• The pleadings and decree of any earlier suit, to show who was and was not a party.
• For a challenger, evidence of his own: the Court noted that none was led here.

Once a share is claimed, revenue entries matter to the property side of the dispute. Co-sharer holdings and fractions are recorded in the Khatoni, explained in this guide on how to read the Khatoni register. A declared share must then be reflected in the revenue records, as described in this note on mutation of land records in Madhya Pradesh. None of this guarantees any result; what a record can establish depends on the facts of each case.

Conclusion: what the judgment settles, leaves open and means in practice

What the judgment settles. On the record before it, the High Court settled that the presumption of marriage from long cohabitation is not lost merely because a pleaded customary marriage fails for want of proof. A long, socially recognised life together as husband and wife raises a presumption of lawful marriage. The burden then lies heavily on the person who calls the union concubinage, and an earlier compromise decree does not bind relatives who were not parties to it.

What it leaves open. The judgment does not define how long cohabitation must last, does not examine the Kari custom, does not decide whether the land was joint family property and does not test the presumption against real contrary evidence. These points remain for the facts of future cases.

The practical message. For litigants, evidence of a lived marriage can matter as much as proof of a ceremony, and a party who attacks a long union must be ready to lead evidence, not only labels. Pleadings, witness accounts and earlier court papers should be kept in order from the start. For the courts below and for institutions that deal with family and land records, the decision confirms that the first appellate court’s reliance on the presumption was sound on this record. It is also a reminder of how long status disputes can run: a suit numbered 1991 reached its final High Court decision in September 2026.