Delhi: After facing trial for over three decades, a septuagenarian man has been sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment by a Delhi court for bigamy in a case registered by his first wife 37 years ago.

Jagdish Prasad, 78, was also asked by Additional Sessions Judge H S Sharma to pay Rs 25,000 to Kailashwati, who married to him in 1951 and was divorced in 1991.

"Keeping in view his age and that he has faced trial from 1971 onwards, the fact that the marriage between him and Kailashwati has been dissolved through a divorce decree in March 1991, and the fact that he had grown up children, I am inclined to reduce his sentence," the judge said.

The court set aside an order of Metropolitan Magistrate awarding three years jail term and Rs 2,000 fine on an appeal of Prasad.

"However, I cannot ignore the plight of the woman, who has all along fought the marathon legal proceedings," the Judge said.

Marrying again during lifetime of a husband or wife is an offence under Section 494 of the IPC with imprisonment upto seven years and fine.

Prasad had assailed the order of his conviction and sentence stating that there was no legal marriage between him and Har Pyari (his alleged second wife who has died) as alleged by Kailashwati. The court, however, rejected his plea noting that Prasad had been shown to be the husband of Har Pyari in the electoral roll.

"The appellant is shown to be husband of Har Pyari. This document would not have come into existence had the appellant not furnished the requisite information to the concerned authorities," the court said.