NEW DELHI: The apex court of the country invoked its special powers under Article 32 of the Constitution of India and ruled that divorce can be granted on the grounds of “irretrievable breakdown“ of the marriage. A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice S K Kaul, Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice A S Oka, Justice Vikram Nath, and Justice J K Maheshwari, ruled that such an exercise of power “will not contravene the principles of public policy”.
The apex court also mentioned that the mandatory six months waiting period for the couple can be waived off, subject to the conditions prevalent at the time of filing for the divorce.
This ruling comes days after a two-judge bench of the court said that the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage can be read as amounting to cruelty under the Hindu Marriage Act of 1955 and can be considered a ground for divorce.
With respect to a previous case wherein a couple which lived together for just 4 years and thereafter separately for 25 years and had several litigations against each other, the court maintained that “a marriage, which has broken down irretrievably, in our opinion, spells cruelty to both the parties, as in such a relationship, each party is treating the other with cruelty. It is therefore a ground for dissolution of marriage under Section 13 (1) (ia) of the Act”, while adding, “irretrievable breakdown of a marriage may not be a ground for dissolution of marriage, under the Hindu Marriage Act, but cruelty is”.
“A marriage can be dissolved by a decree of divorce, inter alia, on the ground when the other party has, after the solemnisation of the marriage, treated the petitioner with cruelty. In our considered opinion, a marital relationship, which has only become more bitter and acrimonious over the years, does nothing but inflicts cruelty on both sides. To keep the façade of this broken marriage alive would be doing injustice to both the parties,” added the bench regarding marriage in its ruling on April 27.
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