In an important decision, the Allahabad High Court has said that a Hindu marriage cannot be dissolved or terminated like a contract. The court said that a Shastra-based and ritual-based Hindu marriage can be dissolved (legally) in limited circumstances and that too only on the basis of evidence presented by the concerned parties.
Allowing an appeal filed by a woman against the dissolution of her marriage, a division bench of Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Donadi Ramesh in its judgment on September 6 said, “Even while granting divorce on the basis of mutual consent between the husband and wife, the trial court should have passed an order of dissolution of marriage only if that mutual consent continued to exist on the date of passing the order. Once the appellant claimed to have withdrawn her consent and this fact is on record, the trial court cannot compel the appellant to abide by the original consent given by her. That too after almost three years.”
The court said, ‘Doing so would be a mockery of justice.’ The woman had filed an appeal in the High Court against the order passed by the Additional District Judge, Bulandshahr in 2011, allowing the divorce petition filed by her husband. The parties were married on February 2, 2006.
The husband was serving in the Indian Army at that time. As per the allegations levelled in the suit, the woman left her husband in 2007. In 2008, the husband filed a suit for divorce.
The wife filed a written statement and stated that she was living with her father. In the mediation proceedings, the parties expressed their intention to live separately. However, the wife later retracted her consent.
Appearing on behalf of the woman, her lawyer Mahesh Sharma argued in the court that all these documents and developments were brought before the court in the divorce proceedings, but the lower court accepted the divorce petition only on the basis of the earlier written statement. The woman challenged this in the High Court.