Assam Cabinet approves Bill to ban polygamy

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the State Cabinet has approved a Bill to ban polygamy, for which convicts may face up to seven years of rigorous imprisonment.

Addressing a press conference after a Cabinet meeting on Sunday late evening, Sarma said the Government will also create a new fund to compensate the victims of polygamy so that they do not face hardship in continuing with their lives. “The Assam Cabinet approved a Bill to ban polygamy. The Bill will be called ‘The Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill, 2025’. It will be tabled in the Assembly on November 25,” he added.

The Chief Minister said that if an accused is convicted of polygamy, he may face rigorous imprisonment of up to seven years. “We have also decided to create a fund to give compensation to the victim women. The Government will help with financial support in the required cases so that no woman faces hardship in her life,” he added.

However, he said that this law will not apply to the State’s Scheduled Tribe communities and in the tribal districts under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

“After the man is imprisoned, what will happen to the woman? Or, if she is a man’s second wife without her knowledge, the woman is the victim. Sometimes, the first wife is sent away from the house after a man marries a second woman. So, [to ensure] that no woman becomes a victim, we will keep a compensation fund,” he said. The CM said the quantum and criteria for eligibility for the compensation will be decided when the rules are framed.

On the exemptions under the Bill, he said, “Tribal people will be excluded because they have some customs. And in Sixth Schedule districts, which are those in the BTC (Bodoland Territorial Council), Dima Hasao, and Karbi Anglong, these Bills will not be implemented immediately. So in the Sixth Schedule areas, if a minority Muslim has been there prior to 2005, he will also be exempted,” he said.

In 2023, the Assam Government had announced plans to bring in an anti-polygamy legislation and constituted a committee headed by retired Gauhati High Court judge Justice Rumi Phukan to “examine the legislative competence of the state legislature to enact a law to end polygamy”. However, it was put on hold at that time after Uttarakhand passed a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in 2024, with Sarma saying that the state government would try to align such a legislation with the UCC.