Wife Settlement Visa from India refused

[dominoe]

Hi Guys

Just wanted to pick professional minds on this forum.

My wife’s settlement visa has been refused only on 1 ground.

In Nov 2010 I conducted a religious marriage with her (Nikaah) – at the time I was married in the UK going through a divorce.

In Oct 2011 my decree absolute was obtained and divorce finalised.

In Nov 2011 I registered my marriage in the Indian courts. (reference to the Nikaah)

The ECO has refused application with the following judgement

Your sponsor was previously married to xxxxx and the decree absolute submitted shows that the divorce was made final on xxx Oct 2011. You entered into marriage with your UK sponsor one year earlier on xxx Nov 2010 and only registered the marriage on 29th Nov 2011 – approximately one month after your sponsors divorce. As such I am not satisfied that your sponsor was free to marry you in nov 2010 as at the time he was still legally married to his first wife. I am therefore not satisfied you meet the requirements 281(i)(a) of the UK immigration rules HC395 (as amended)

I have therefor refused your application because I am not satisfied, on the balance of probabilities, that you meet all the requirements of the relevant paragraph of the united kingdom immigration rules.


Questions:

Is Nikaah being legally recognised by the UK ?
Is a nikaah document sufficient on its own to apply for settlement visa? If not then I don’t believe this has any basis under law.

Can someone just help clarify please and provide guidance, as I believe I satisfied all criteria and they decided to pick this technical one.

Help appreciated as i will be appealing

[pennylessinindia]

at the time of your second marriage you were not free to marry as you were already married in the UK .
What do you mean by registered with the court in India do you mean a civil ceremony or civil registration ?

[harv]

Hi dominoe

I think we need to clear one thing here.

Religious Marriage and Registering the marriage in court.

When we go about registering the marriage in courts in India it is basically confirming that the religious marriage took place with the date and place of the religious marriage.

However if we talk about a court marriage which is slightly different, in this case you say you do not belong to any religion and would like to register your marriage then and there in the court in front of the magistrate. This process will put the date of the marriage to the date when the certificate is being issued.

As far as I know in Muslin Marriage act, that you are allowed to have 4 wives at any given time legally, if I am not wrong. So from Indian legality point of view your marriage is legal with your second wife while your marriage with first wife was still legal. However UK does not allows this and you need to show that when your religious marriage happened you were single.

I am not sure how can you do this, since you have already married your partner and the dates are already overlapping. Maybe some more insight by other forum members could help.

It is definitely a case to appeal and you should get some specialised legal help from someone who has experience with Muslim Marriages outside UK.

[dominoe]

at the time of your second marriage you were not free to marry as you were already married in the UK .
What do you mean by registered with the court in India do you mean a civil ceremony or civil registration ?

Hiya

civil registration as I obtained a Certificate of Registration of Marriage (section 6 (I),(e) and rule 5)

any other expert opinions appreciated as I will have to appeal and need ground to explain the situation. Any one come across this before?

[NZama1]

what was the outcome? how did you proceed?? would be a good learning point