Criminal Appeal No.1403 of 2025 (filed u/S 378(4) Cr.PC; corresponding provision u/S 419(4) BNSS), High Court of Karnataka at Bengaluru, decided 02.04.2026, coram M.G.S. Kamal, J. — Complainant's appeal against acquittal of the respondents of the offence punishable under Section 494 of IPC (bigamy) by the Principal Senior Civil Judge and JMFC, Sagar in C.C.No.124/2019 dated 07.02.2025. Marriage between the complainant and accused No.1 was not in dispute; the complaint alleged that accused No.1 married accused No.2 during the subsistence of the first marriage. At trial, the complainant examined herself as PW1 with Exs.P1–P11; no evidence was recorded for the accused except confrontation with Ex.D1, a Partition Deed. The appellant urged that accused No.1's affidavit dated 20.07.2019 (Ex.P3) filed in domestic violence proceedings in C.Misc.No.94/2014 — acknowledging accused No.2 as his wife with three children — sufficed for conviction. The Court noted the trial Court, placing reliance on Kanwal Ram v. Himachal Pradesh Administration, AIR 1966 SC 614 (admission is not evidence of the fact of second marriage; ceremonies constituting it must be proved) and the evidence required under Section 50 of the Indian Evidence Act, declined to convict on the affidavit alone. Holding (M.G.S. Kamal, J.): no iota of oral or documentary evidence was produced regarding the alleged second marriage; in the absence of cogent and unambiguous material evidence the accused cannot be convicted under Section 494 of IPC, particularly in light of the complainant's cross-examination of 30.09.2024. No grounds were made out to take a view other than the trial Court's; appeal dismissed and acquittal sustained.
