The classic case that proves how much judicial time is wasted on one or the other partner seeking matrimonial revenge concluded recently in the Supreme Court which granted the warring couple a divorce, but fined each of them Rs 10,000 for clogging up the system. Here’s the legal shocker: The actual marriage lasted just 65 days. The legal battle between the estranged couple (Neha Lal vs Abhishek Kumar) lasted 13 years and involved a total of 40 cases filed by one or the other of the aggrieved parties in family courts, High Courts in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, and finally the apex court.
A bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Manmohan granted the divorce by invoking Article 142 (under which the courts can grant divorce on the ground of “irretrievable breakdown” in the interest of justice even if one party opposes it) and barred the couple from filing any other cases. As the bench observed: “In view of the fact that the parties stayed together for a period of 65 days and have indulged in numerous (40 in total) litigations for more than a decade with a view to settle scores, both of them deserved to be penalised.”
The bench also noted that the number of matrimonial disputes has gone up substantially in recent years, and advised family members to intervene and settle matters before it reaches the courts. That is easier said than done.
In this case, the wife had left the husband alleging cruelty inflicted upon her by the husband and his family members. As another bench of the Supreme Court observed: “We have become a matrimonial court now.” That refers to the growing number of cases involving matrimonial disputes where parties treat litigation as a tool for personal vendetta or harassment rather than a pursuit of justice. Courts have noted that legal battles in broken marriages are often dragged on for years—sometimes over a decade for marriages that lasted only a few days—due to desire for revenge by filing false allegations.
The Supreme Court ruled that expecting the spouses to resume marital life after years of separation and hostility would be unrealistic. Invoking Article 142, the Court directly dissolved the marriage, even without mutual consent. This judgment has set an important precedent in matrimonial law, especially for cases where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, but legal procedures have stalled resolution.
In an earlier landmark ruling that prioritizes human dignity and practical reality over legal formalities, the Supreme Court declared that “marriage is not a life sentence”. A bench, comprising Justices Manmohan and Joymalya Bagchi, dissolved a marriage that had been effectively dead for over two decades, emphasizing that keeping a “marriage on paper” serves no social purpose when the emotional bond has completely vanished. The Court’s observations reflect the judiciary’s position that while the law aims to preserve the sanctity of marriage, it cannot be used to force two individuals to remain tied to a relationship that has irretrievably broken down.
This referenced a case which dates back to August 2000 when Nayan Bhowmick and Aparna Chakraborty were married in Shillong. They happened to be colleagues, working for the Life Insurance Corporation. That marriage lasted barely a year when Aparna left her husband claiming that his family was pressing her to quit her job, despite her need to support her elderly mother and dependent brother. This followed another marathon legal battle. A divorce suit was filed as early as 2003. Although a trial court eventually granted a divorce in 2010 on grounds of desertion, the Gauhati High Court reversed this in 2011, believing the marriage could still be saved. The case then moved to the Supreme Court, where it remained pending for over a decade.
The telling aspect of this judgment is how the Supreme Court interpreted “cruelty”. In this case, it did not involve any physical abuse or mental harassment, but while writing the judgment, Justice Manmohan said: “The bench observed that both parties had become so detached that despite working in the same LIC branch, they had not interacted for years. This “prolonged separation and unending litigation”, the Court said, had reduced the marriage to a mere “legal fiction”. The Court invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution, which allows it to pass any order necessary to do “complete justice”.
The Court referred to the 2023 Constitution bench decision in Shilpa Sailesh vs Varun Sreenivasan, which clarified that the Supreme Court is not strictly bound by the “fault-based” rules of the Hindu Marriage Act. In other words, the Court doesn’t always need to find one person “guilty” of a mistake to grant a divorce; the simple fact that the marriage is “dead” and beyond repair is enough.
While courts should ordinarily try to save marriages, this principle shouldn’t be applied mechanically. If people have lived apart for decades (in this case, 24 years), there is no “sanctity” left to protect.
The Court also noted that since there were no children from the marriage, dissolving it would not adversely affect any third party. The Court again emphasized that continuing a prolonged legal battle would be a waste of judicial time. The Supreme Court set aside the Gauhati High Court’s 2011 order and restored the original decree of divorce. In its concluding remarks, the bench made it clear: when a relationship has reached a point where reconciliation is “not in the realm of possibility”, the law must step in to grant the parties the freedom to move on with their lives.
In a similar case, the Karnataka High Court bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit said that matrimonial cases should be tried and disposed of on a “war footing”. The Court said that when a matrimonial case involves the prayer for the dissolution/nullity of marriage, courts should make all efforts to try and dispose of it preferably within one year, so that in the event of granting such a decree, the parties may restructure their lives. Delay in disposal of matrimonial cases affects the parties very negatively. The Court asked the Family Court judge to conclude the trial and dispose of the seven-year-old matrimonial dispute case within an outer limit of three months.
The legal dilemma is being able to conclude that a marriage has “irretrievably” broken down. The most important landmark judgment regarding this was Naveen Kohli vs Neelu Kohli, delivered on March 21, 2006, by a three-judge bench and written by Justice Dalveer Bhandari. In this case, the parties married in 1975 and had three sons, for whom they established three factories. The husband alleged due to the ill-temper and rude behaviour of the wife he could not continue with the marriage and moved out of the house in 1994 and started living in rented accommodation. Subsequently, there were multiple FIRs lodged between the parties and numerous civil and criminal proceedings. Finally, the matter reached the Supreme Court and after much consideration, it held that: “Even at this stage, the respondent doesn’t want divorce by mutual consent. From the analysis an evaluation of the entire evidence is that the respondent has resolved to live in agony only to make life a miserable hell for the appellant. A marriage between the parties is only in name. To keep the sham is obviously conducive to immorality and potentially more prejudicial to the public interest than a dissolution of the marriage bond. Hence the Court granted divorce on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown of marriage holding that there was nothing left in the marriage to continue to hold on to it would be a sham and would be counterproductive.”
Such observations and rulings in India have highlighted cases where couples spent significantly more time in legal battles than in their actual marriage. The Supreme Court has criticized this phenomenon, often stemming from hasty, broken relationships followed by years of litigation, describing it as an abuse of the judicial system. The Court has noted that such long-pending, bitter litigation reduces a marriage to a “paper marriage”, prompting the use of Article 142 to dissolve them.
Paper marriages, in judicial language, refers to cases where the legal dispute lasts decades longer than the actual cohabitation. Courts have found that legal battles in broken marriages are often dragged on for years—sometimes over a decade—mainly due to ego, desire for revenge, and false allegations. These days, it seems, marriages may be made in heaven, but it is the already-clogged courts where the real hell begins.
—The writer is former Senior Managing Editor, India Legal magazine
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