A man who had got a consensual divorce by making a woman pose as his wife in court now finds himself in trouble.

Calcutta High Court on Wednesday stayed the divorce decree passed by a Lok Adalat after Sanjib Saha’s real wife, Dipika, moved a petition.

The stay is unprecedented since challenges to a Lok Adalat’s order cannot be mounted in any other court.

While passing the stay, the high court conceded the fact.

Justice Pariah Sikh Duty observed: “It is a fact that, challenging the Lok Adalat’s order, appeals cannot be moved in any other court. But considering the gravity of the issue, the high court is exercising its power and taking the matter for hearing before this court.”

The court said prima facie it had been established that Sanjib used unfair means in presenting another woman as his wife.

Dipika, 27, learnt about her divorce from her husband who told her in April he had obtained a decree from the Alipore Lok Adalat.

She moved out of their home at Raynagar under Bansdroni police station with their six-year-old son, Sayandeb, and started staying with her parents in the same locality.

After a few days, Dipika found out that her husband had moved a joint divorce petition by making another woman pose as his wife on January 15 this year.

For quick disposal, the case was transferred to the Lok Adalat, which issued the divorce decree on January 20, Dipika’s counsel Kaushik Chanda said.

The lawyer argued that in a recent directive the Supreme Court had made it mandatory to produce the marriage registration certificate and photographs of husband and wife along with the joint petition.

“The husband did not produce any,” he said.

After hearing the submission, the court asked the trial court to send to it all documents relating to the divorce decree and fixed the matter for hearing after three weeks.

The court also directed Dipika’s lawyer to serve a notice on Sanjib, asking him to contest the case moved by his wife.

Dipika and Sanjiv married on April 17, 2001. Differences of opinion occurred between the two in 2003 but were settled on the intervention of relatives from both sides.

Not for long, though.

It’s not rare for men to try and obtain a divorce by producing dummy wives in court. A year ago, a marriage bureau, Relations, which found in a survey that 150 men had done this over four years, had moved a PIL before the high court. But it was not heard because of a technical fault.