What does it mean to annul my marriage under Hindu law?

As you know, there are certain conditions for a valid Hindu marriage. When these legal requirements are not met, your marriage suffers from certain legal defects/problems. It has no legal validity and you can annul the marriage in a Court. There are two categories of legal defects in a marriage – ‘void’ and ‘voidable.’ It’s simple – a void marriage is automatically considered an invalid marriage from the very beginning and there is no need to annul it. On the other hand, a voidable marriage is legal until a Court says it is not. Once you have fulfilled conditions then your marriage can go back to being valid.

For example, marriages are void when the conditions of not having a spouse before getting married, you and spouse not falling within the category of “prohibited relationship” or “sapindas” are not followed. On the other hand, a marriage is voidable when your spouse is impotent.