Allahabad High Court Upholds Sadhna Devi’s Status as Army Soldier’s Widow After 18-Year Battle

Prayagraj: The Allahabad High Court has upheld a Family Court ruling recognising Sadhna Devi as the legally wedded wife and widow of an Indian Army soldier who died after sustaining a gunshot wound during an encounter with terrorists, rejecting the soldier’s parents’ claim that the couple had never married and had only been engaged.

A Division Bench of Justice Arindam Sinha and Justice Satya Veer Singh dismissed First Appeal No. 493 of 2025, Rajdhari and Another v. Sadhna Devi, and affirmed the Family Court’s April 28, 2025 judgment. The court held that the evidence on record established that the marriage had taken place on May 12, 2007, and noted that the parents’ later denial was inconsistent with their own earlier stand before another High Court.

The case centred on the death of the soldier, identified in earlier Gujarat High Court proceedings as Arve Shanker Yadav. He was serving in the Army when he died on January 14, 2008, from a gunshot wound sustained in an encounter with terrorists. Sadhna Devi maintained that she had married him on May 12, 2007, at her parental home in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, about eight months before his death.

The soldier’s parents disputed that version. They argued that the ceremony held on May 12, 2007 was only an engagement and that the actual wedding had been fixed for April 24, 2008. Since their son died before that date, they said Sadhna Devi could not claim widowhood or the service-related benefits and honours that flowed from it.

The dispute had wider implications because Sadhna Devi’s status as the soldier’s widow affected her recognition as next of kin and her entitlement to posthumous benefits and honours. The Family Court had conducted a full trial, framed seven issues and examined oral and documentary evidence before deciding the central questions in her favour.

One of the most important aspects before the Allahabad High Court was the position earlier taken by the soldier’s mother in proceedings before the Gujarat High Court. Soon after her son’s death, she filed Special Civil Application No. 2163 of 2009. In that petition, she did not contend that no marriage had taken place. Instead, she stated in substance that it was not disputed that her son had married Sadhna Devi on May 12, 2007. Her argument then was that the marriage had not been consummated, and she relied on a local custom under which consummation could occur one to three years later after another religious ceremony.

That earlier stand was materially different from the one later advanced before the Family Court and the Allahabad High Court, where the family asserted that there had been no marriage at all and that the May 12 ceremony was merely an engagement. The Gujarat High Court rejected the mother’s petition on March 12, 2009. The Allahabad High Court treated the earlier admission of marriage as a significant circumstance that could not be brushed aside when the family later advanced a completely different version.

The litigation also extended to the soldier’s posthumous honours. On April 19, 2009, Sadhna Devi attended an investiture ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan and received a posthumous award from the President of India as the widow of the deceased soldier.

Further proceedings followed, with the soldier’s mother again approaching the Gujarat High Court to question Sadhna Devi’s entitlement to post-death benefits and honours. Departmental inquiries reached conflicting conclusions: one treated Sadhna Devi as the soldier’s married wife, while a later inquiry said sufficient proof of marriage had not been produced. The Gujarat High Court proceedings eventually went against Sadhna Devi, review applications failed and her special leave petitions were summarily dismissed by the Supreme Court on September 1, 2010.

The Allahabad High Court, however, held that those earlier proceedings did not amount to a final adjudication of marital status after a full civil trial. They had arisen mainly in the context of service benefits and departmental inquiries, and Sadhna Devi had not fully contested the factual issues in some of those proceedings. By contrast, the Family Court matter involved both sides, framed issues and evidence tested through a complete trial. The Bench said the earlier Gujarat High Court and Supreme Court orders could not override that later judicial determination.

On the evidence itself, the High Court noted that Sadhna Devi had produced marriage invitation cards, including one carrying handwriting attributed to the deceased soldier’s father. Witnesses also testified that they had attended the May 12, 2007 marriage ceremony, and their testimony was not shaken in cross-examination. The court also referred to evidence concerning a motorcycle gifted in connection with the ceremony, which was later found registered in the name of the husband of one of the appellants’ daughters.

The parents had relied heavily on the fact that vidai, the customary ceremonial departure of a bride to her husband’s home, had not taken place. The High Court rejected the argument that the absence of vidai meant there had been no marriage. It agreed with the Family Court that solemnisation of marriage and the later vidai ceremony were distinct matters, and that failure to perform a later customary ritual could not nullify otherwise credible evidence showing that the wedding itself had occurred.

The Bench also found no positive evidence supporting the claim that only an engagement ceremony had been held on May 12, 2007. Nor was it persuaded by the argument that the real wedding had been scheduled for April 24, 2008. The record showed that leave had been taken so family members could attend the May 12 ceremony in Azamgarh. There was also material indicating that the soldier had applied for leave for his marriage and had been asked to produce photographs. After returning to duty following the ceremony, nothing on record suggested that he ever disputed the marriage before his death in January 2008. The Family Court had described the later claim of an April 2008 wedding as an “after thought”, and the High Court saw no reason to interfere with that finding.

Another argument raised by the parents concerned Sadhna Devi’s age. An identity card produced during the trial recorded her date of birth as July 20, 1989. On that basis, she would have been about two months short of 18 when the marriage took place on May 12, 2007. The parents argued in appeal that the marriage should therefore be treated as void.

The High Court rejected that contention both procedurally and on the law. It noted that the parents had not raised the issue in their written statement before the Family Court, no issue on minority had been framed, and they had not sought an additional issue even after the identity card was placed on record. Referring to Order XIV Rule 1 of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Bench said an issue arises only when a material proposition asserted by one party is denied by the other. An entirely new argument about age, raised for the first time at the appellate stage, was therefore without substance.

The court also examined the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. While Section 5(iii) requires the bride to have completed 18 years of age, Section 11, which deals with void marriages, does not list violation of that age requirement as a ground that automatically renders a marriage void. Section 12, concerning voidable marriages, also does not allow third parties to seek annulment merely on the basis of the age condition under Section 5(iii).

More importantly, the Bench held that proceedings under Section 11 for a declaration that a marriage is void are available to the parties to the marriage. The appellants were the deceased soldier’s parents, not parties to the marriage. Their attempt to challenge it after their son’s death could not be sustained on that basis.

The parents had also questioned the Family Court’s jurisdiction, arguing that the dispute was really about distribution of benefits after the soldier’s death and should therefore have been decided by an ordinary civil court. They relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in R. Kasthuri v. M. Kasthuri, which involved competing claims over the property of a deceased person.

The Allahabad High Court distinguished that precedent. In the present matter, the core issue was not merely the distribution of property or benefits, but whether Sadhna Devi had legally married the deceased soldier at all. A proceeding seeking a declaration of marital status falls within the Family Courts Act, 1984, the Bench held.

The judgment has significance beyond the immediate family dispute because it addresses the kind of conflict that can arise after the death of a serviceman, when service records, nominations, customary practices, departmental inquiries and competing family claims produce conflicting accounts. The court gave weight to earlier judicial admissions, especially the soldier’s mother’s earlier acknowledgment that the marriage had taken place, and held that the absence of rituals such as vidai could not by itself undo evidence of solemnisation.

Finding no perversity in the Family Court’s appreciation of evidence, the Allahabad High Court dismissed the appeal and upheld the earlier judgment. Sadhna Devi therefore remains judicially recognised as the legally wedded wife and widow of the Army soldier who died on January 14, 2008.