Judgment : A son is prosecuting his father for bigamy. The father now seeks to invoke High Court’s inherent jurisdiction to quash the prosecution on the premise that a son cannot launch such prosecution against his father or mother for the offence of bigamy. 2. In the complaint filed by the son he stated that the marriage between his father and mother was solemnised in 1961 and four children including the complainant were born to them and while the marriage was subsisting his father (the present petitioner) has undergone the ceremony of marriage with another woman (Prabhavathy, who is second accused in the complaint)on 9. 1987 and that the complainant came to know of his father’s matrimonial reduplication only recently. 3. Petitioner neither admitted nor disputed the nubile recurrence attributed to him. Instead, he seems to have chosen a strategy of subterfuge and Sought to resist the prosecution, inter alia, by questioning the competence of the complainant to become an aggrieved person filing the complaint. 4. Sec.494 of the Indian Penal Code is the offence of bigamy, Sec.497 is the offence of adultery and Sec.498 is the offence of enticing a married woman. Those sections fall within Chapter XX of the I.P.C. which contains penal provisions for offences “relating to marriage”. Sec. 198 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (for short ‘the Code’) imposes certain restrictions in launching prosecution for offences against marriage. As per the provision no court shall take cognizance of any of the offences punishable under the aforesaid Chapter XX except upon a complaint made by some person “aggrieved by the offence”. The proviso to Sec. 198(1) has two clauses. As per the first clause to the proviso to Sec. 198(1) when the person aggrieved is under the age of eighteen or is under the disabilities mentioned therein another person can make the complaint with the leave of the Court. As per the second clause if the aggrieved person is the husband and is serving in any of the Armed Forces of the Union any other person authorised by the husband can make the complaint on his behalf. On the strength of the above two clauses learned counsel contended that the Code contemplated only a spouse as the aggrieved person for making a complaint for bigamy. 5. A scrutiny of the legal provisions would show that the said contention is fallacious. On the strength of the above two clauses learned counsel contended that the Code contemplated only a spouse as the aggrieved person for making a complaint for bigamy. 5. A scrutiny of the legal provisions would show that the said contention is fallacious. Sub-Sec.(2) of Sec.198 of the Code is a clear indicator that the expression “aggrieved person” is not intended to be restricted to one of the spouses so far as offence of bigamy is concerned. Sub-sec.(2) is extracted below: “For the purposes of Sub-sec.(i), no person other than the husband of the woman shall be deemed to be aggrieved by any offence punishable under Sec. 497 or Sec. 498 of the said Code: Provided that in the absence of the husband, some person who had care of the woman on his behalf at the time when such offence was committed may, with the leave of the Court, make a complaint on his behalf.” The above sub-section makes it clear that only the concerned husband can have the legal outfit of a complainant if the offence is adultery or enticement of a married woman. Of course in the absence of such husband some other person can make a complaint in respect of those two offences, but under certain conditions. But the legislature has definitely kept apart the offence of bigamy from the ambit of restrictions regarding the status of the complainant. It means that any person, whether he or she is the spouse or descendant or parent of the offender, can become the complainant in a case for bigamy if he is aggrieved of the offence. No doubt, the grievance should not be a pretence, but must be genuine. 6. Learned counsel for the petitioner invited my attention to the table given under Sec. 320(2) of the Code while dealing with compounding of offences. As per Sub-sec.(2) the persons mentioned in the third column of the table can compound the offence with permission of the court. It is shown in the table that only the husband or wife of the person involved in the bigamy can seek permission to compound the offence. On its basis learned counsel contended that none else is envisaged as the aggrieved person for the offence of bigamy since none else can compound it. 7. It is shown in the table that only the husband or wife of the person involved in the bigamy can seek permission to compound the offence. On its basis learned counsel contended that none else is envisaged as the aggrieved person for the offence of bigamy since none else can compound it. 7. The above argument had a seeming glow but a closer look convinced me that the aforesaid feature in the compounding process does not possess the effect of constricting the ambit of aggrieved persons to spouses alone. There are many offences which could be compounded, with or without permission of the court, at the instance of the persons mentioned in the third column of the table provided in Sec. 320. In respect of a large number of such offences anybody can become complainant, but only the person specified in the table can compound the offence concerned. It cannot be argued that in respect of such offences only the person mentioned in the table alone would be competent to lauch the prosecution. Hence the mere fact that a husband or wife alone is permitted by law to compound the offence of bigamy docs not mean that a husband or wife alone can become complainant in such case. 8. For the aforesaid reasons, I am unable to interfere with the proceedings adopted by the learned magistrate by taking cognizance of the offence upon the complaint filed by petitioner’s son. Accordingly, this criminal miscellaneous case is dismissed in limine.