Chandigarh, January 4
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that not granting a decree of divorce would be disastrous if marriage between the couple had broken down irretrievably and there was no chance of their coming or living together again. The Bench also made it clear that living together was not a compulsory exercise and marriage was a “tie between two parties”.
The ruling by the Bench of Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Archana Puri came in a case where the respondent-wife was not staying with the appellant-husband for the last 18 years and was not ready to give mutual divorce to him.
The Bench asserted respondent-wife was financially secure as she was working as a permanent lecturer. The parties were staying separately for the last around 18 years and the high court made several attempts to settle the dispute amicably, but in vain.
The respondent-wife was insisting on staying with the appellant-husband, but he was not ready to take her back. “She does not want to move ahead and she is adamant that even appellant should not move ahead in his life,” the Bench observed.
The matter was brought to the high court’s notice after the husband filed an appeal against a family court’s order dismissing his petition under the Hindu Marriage Act 1955, for dissolution of marriage between the parties by a decree of divorce on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. The Bench was assisted in the matter by counsel Jagmohan Singh Ghuman and Saurabh Arora.
The Bench observed the issue for consideration was whether the wife’s disinclination to give mutual divorce to the appellant-husband would amount to cruelty towards him and whether the relationship between them had come to an end.
“In the present case, firstly efforts were made to resolve the matrimonial dispute through the process of mediation, which is one of the effective modes of an alternative mechanism in resolving the personal disputes, but the mediation failed between the parties,” the Bench observed.
Applying the ratio of the SC judgments, the Bench allowed the appeal and ordered the setting aside of the family court’s judgment, while granting decree of divorce to the parties. “However, we direct the appellant-husband to make an FD of Rs 10 lakh in the name of the respondent-wife,” the Bench concluded. — TNS
Couple not staying together for 18 yrs
The ruling by the Bench of Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Archana Puri came in a case where the respondent-wife was not staying with the appellant-husband for the last 18 years and was not ready to give mutual divorce to him
Not granting divorce disastrous, if no chance of living together: Punjab and Haryana High Court
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