The Assam Cabinet has approved a Bill to prohibit polygamy in the state, entailing a penal provision of seven years’ imprisonment. The Bill will be tabled in the legislative Assembly in the coming session scheduled from November 25.
After attending the Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma announced that the Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill-2025 will be tabled in the Assembly later this month. 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.
“Today, the Cabinet has approved the Assam Prohibition of Polygamy Bill 2025. Anybody, after the passing [in the Assembly] of this Bill, marrying for the second or third time will face imprisonment for seven years. And in this Bill, this offence has been made a cognizable offence, meaning they will not be given bail immediately,” he said.
He added that the Bill also contains a provision for the state government to set up a special fund to offer compensation to women who are “victims of polygamy”.
“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 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 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.
