17. A marriage shall not be invalid or void save by a judgment of a Court declaring such marriage as invalid or void, as the case may be.
18.-(1) A suit for the declaration of a marriage as invalid may be instituted before a Court by one of the parties to the marriage or by any person who has any interest in the marriage. (2) A suit for the declaration of a marriage as void may only be instituted by one of the parties to the marriage.
19. A marriage shall be declared invalid where-
(a) at the date of the marriage one of the parties is already married;
(b) at the date of the marriage either party to the marriage would be prohibited from marrying by reason of the provisions of section 6 or 7:
Provided that, where consent is required for the marriage under the first proviso to subsection (1) of section 6 and a marriage has taken place without such consent, such marriage shall not be declared invalid if, in the meantime, the female party concerned-
(a) completes her eighteenth year;
(b) obtains the required consent; or
(c) is pregnant.
20. A marriage may be declared void where the party suing for such declaration satisfies the Court that-
(a)at the date of the marriage, his or her judgment was affected by reason of some transitory cause;
(b) he or she entered upon the marriage ceremony under a bona fide mistake in that he or she did not in fact intend to contract a marriage or to marry that particular person;
(c) he or she was induced to contract the marriage under a bona fide mistake and belief that the other party possessed certain qualities, the absence of which, in the opinion of the Court, would make life in common impossible or intolerable;
(d) he or she has been wilfully deceived by the other party or by a third person as to the other party's moral character and had thereby been induced to contract the marriage;
(e)the other party suffers from a disease which gravely endangers the health of the party suing for the declaration or of any children of the marriage and such disease had been concealed from the party suing for such declaration;
(f) he or she was induced to contract the marriage by threats of a grave and imminent danger to his or her own life or health or honour or the life, health or honour of a person closely related to such party.
21. No suit for the declaration of a marriage as void shall be entertained unless instituted within one year from the date from which the party seeking to avoid the marriage has become aware of the ground for the avoidance, or, if the ground is under paragraph (f) of section 20, from the withdrawal of the threats as in such paragraph set out: Provided that, in any case, no such suit shall be entertained after a lapse of five years from the date of the marriage.
22. Notwithstanding that a marriage may have been declared invalid or void, the children of any such marriage shall be considered to be legitimate and the relative position of the parents and the children in every such case shall be governed by the same rules as in the case of children where parents are divorced.
23. No marriage solemnized by a marriage officer shall be declared as invalid or void-
(a) solely by reason that any of the formalities regarding marriages, as in this Law provided, have not been observed;
(b) solely by reason of the fact that the marriage has been contracted before the expiration of the required periods as in this Law provided.
24. Where a marriage has been declared invalid or void the claim of the parties to any damages, maintenance or other compensation shall be governed by the same rules as in the case of divorce.
25. Upon the death of a party, any suit for the declaration of a marriage as invalid or void shall be stayed: Provided that nothing in this section contained shall affect the right of the surviving party or of the heirs of the deceased party to claim damages, maintenance or other compensation as in the preceding section provided.